

^*ifr» <i^ i>i * i)«t> >ti 






LIBRA RY OF^CONGR ESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HOME WHISPERS. 



BY THE 

Rev. HENRY A. NELSON, D. D. 




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PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



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THE LIBRARY 
OF C ONG RESS 

WASHINGTON 






COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypes and Electrotyfers, Philada. 



WITH THANKFUL MEMORY AND REVERENT LOVE I DEDICATE 

THIS VOLUME TO HER WHOSE LOVE MADE MY 

HOME, AND STILL HALLOWS IT — 

" that being beauteous 

Who unto my youth was given, 
More than all things else, to love me, 
And is now a saint in heaven." 

H. A. N. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

Home n 

II. 
The Hallowing of Home 15 

III. 
Family Worship 19 

IV. 
Family Government 26 

V. 

The Relation of Domestic Virtue to Public Virtue . 30 

VI. 
God's Relation to Mothers 34 

VII. 
Christ's Relation to Mothers "38 

VIII. 
The Holy Spirit in the Family 43 

IX. 

The Salvation of Infants 55 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

X 

PAGE 

Infant Church-Membership 68 

XI. 

Termination of Infant Church-Membership .... 78 

XII. 
Little Communicants 84 

XIII. 
The Beginning of Love , 92 

XIV. 
The Honor Due to Weakness 95 

XV. 
Polish and Solidity , . . 99 

XVI. 
The Lord Hearkening 102 

XVII. 
Elkanah 107 

XVIII. 
The Childless in 

XIX. 
Bring the Children 116 

XX. 
"Mary!" — "Rabboni!" 119 

XXI. 

The Witnessing of the Holy Spirit 123 



CONTENTS. 7 

Obey the Spirit 126 

XXIII. 
Filial Trust 130 

XXIV. 
From Bethel to Peniel 136 

XXV. 
Sympathy and Prayer 145 

XXVI. 
Prayer of the Unconverted 150 

XXVII. 
Answers to Prayer 153 

XXVIII. 
"Unanswered Prayer" 159 

XXIX. . 
Moving Mountains 163 

XXX. 
Writing to God 167 

XXXI. 
"The Beloved Physician " 174 

XXXII. 
"The Sabbath was Made for Man" 180 

XXXIII. 
"Cast a Hook" . 18S 



8 CONTENTS. 

XXXIV. 

PAGE 

The Burden Dropped Entirely 616 

XXXV. 
The Lion-Lamb s 205 

XXXVI. 
John's Embassy to Jesus 212 

XXXVII. 
The God of Hope , . 217 

XXXVIII. 
The Kingdom of God 223 

XXXIX. 

The Lord's Martyrs 229 

XL. 
Conviction of Sin 234 

XLI. 
A Calm Conversion 241 

XLII. 
Cobden and Bright 247 

XLIII. 
Elder Wyckoff 251 

XLIV. 
God's Poem 258 

XLV. 
With the Lord . 262 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



This volume is not a continuous treatise 
— not strictly a book. It is a collection of 
essays, most of which have been printed 
in some of our periodicals. More than 
one reader has kindly expressed the desire 
for the republication of several of them in 
a more permanent form. From none have 
kinder words of encouragement come than 
from editors in whose columns they have 
had hospitable welcome. So large a part 
of them are on domestic themes as to have 
suggested the title, the right to which, I 
hope, is not forfeited to the volume by in- 
cluding some home-ly talks on some other 

themes. 

H. A. N. 

9 



Home Whispers. 



HOME. 

"'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ! 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us here, 
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! 

There's no place like home." 

" A CHARM from the skies " indeed it is 
l\ that sweetens and hallows to human 
souls one "place," one spot of earth, above 
all others. More definitely, the Christian 
heart may translate the poetic phrase "a 
charm from the skies " into " a blessing from 
God." " So God created man in his image, 
in the image of God created he him ; male 
and female created he them. And God 
blessed them, and God said unto them, Be 

11 



12 HOME WHISPERS. 

fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the 
earth, and subdue it: and have dominion 
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
of the air, and over every living thing that 
moveth upon the earth " (Gen. i : 27, 28). 
So "He who made them from the begin- 
ning made them male and female " (Matt. 
19:4). So in duality of person, in diversity 
of sex, in unity of being, the Lord God 
created man. The family is as old as the 
race. Home was instituted in Eden. Par- 
adise with all its flowers would not have 
been home without the union in mutual love 
of that pure human pair. The pure, true, 
faithful love of a human pair makes any 
place in which they dwell together home. 
His blessing has its complete fulfillment 
when he gives them offspring, and the 
olive-plants about their table fill the place 
with the sweet fragrance of the " oil of 
gladness." 

To the one earthly creature who was ca- 
pable of realizing the divine idea of home, 
dominion was fitly given over all other crea- 
tures upon the earth. Their lower loves 
might multiply their offspring in nests, in 



HOME. 13 

lairs, in fields and in the deep waters, and 
might fulfill the lower enjoyment of which 
their lower nature was capable: the holy 
blessedness which God reserved for the 
creature whom he made in his own image 
he purposed to fulfill in home. 

When the first human sin blighted the 
fair hope of a perpetual earthly Paradise, 
no sorer woe befell mankind than the de- 
spoiling of home. Truthfully the great 
poet of Paradise pictures this woe, where 
he says of Adam and Eve, when they had 
just put on their poor fig-leaves — 

" They sat them down to weep ; nor only tears 
Rain'd at their eyes, but high winds worse within 
Began to rise ; high passions, anger, hate, 
Mistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore 
Their inward state of mind, calm region once 
And full of peace, now tost and turbulent." 

All that is truly told us of the degradation 
and miserable enslavement of woman in all 
lands which lack the light of divine revela- 
tion may be summed up in the statement 
that there they know not the sanctity nor 
the blessedness of home. A native of Ja- 
pan,* Christianized, educated, preparing in 

* Rev. Naomi Zamma. 



14 HOME WHISPERS. 

America to preach to his people the gospel 
of redemption, when asked by his friends 
in Japan to write to them of America's 
greatest wonder, wrote somewhat as fol- 
lows : " It is not the vast breadth of their 
continental land ; not their immense system 
of railroads ; not their sublime mountains 
and their mighty rivers ; not their populous 
cities, their vast combinations of capital, 
their audacious enterprises, their marvel- 
ous accumulations of wealth ; not even their 
noble schools and asylums and churches. 
The greatest wonder in Christian America 
is the Christian home." He was right, and 
when Japan and Corea and China and India 
and Siam and Africa shall be filled with 
Christian homes, then indeed the peaceful 
reign of Immanuel will be established. 
Then " the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, 
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; 
and the calf and the young lion and the 
fading together ; and a little child shall lead 
them." 



II. 

THE HALLOWING OF HOME. 

THE seventh of God's Ten Command- 
ments guards and hallows the family 
and the home — guards them by hallowing 
them. It recognizes the right of every 
husband and wife to the exclusive posses- 
sion of each other, and gives to that right 
the sanction and protection of God. The 
demand for exclusive affection and posses- 
sion in wedlock is no selfish exaction. It 
belongs to no low impulses of our nature. 
Its strength and its strenuousness are pro- 
portioned to the elevation and refinement 
of the whole womanly and the whole manly 
nature. The divine commandment adds 
peculiar sanctity to this human right. That 
which on natural grounds the husband and 
wife owe to each other, God also demands 
as due to him, who " made them male and 
female." All those peculiar powers and af- 

15 



1 6 HOME WHISPERS. 

fections which distinguish the sexes, and at 
the same time make them attract each other, 
which distinguish man and woman from each 
other, and at the same time make them con- 
sciously need each other, — all these powers 
and affections are regulated by this com- 
mandment. 

The conjugal relation is pre-eminently 
sacred. Marriage is a "holy estate." It 
is the symbol of all else that is holy upon 
the earth. Even Christ deems it the worthy 
type of his own relation to his Church. 
" For the husband is the head of the wife, 
even as Christ is the Head of the Church: 
and he is the saviour of the body. There- 
fore as the Church is subject unto Christ, 
so let the wives be to their own husbands 
in everything. Husbands, love your wives, 
even as Christ also loved the Church, and 
gave himself for it" (Eph. 5 : 23-25. See 
also Rev. 19 : 7, 8 and 21:2, 9). 

The sanctity which God's word gives to 
the parental relation is of unspeakable value 
to the children. The pure delight in their 
offspring which only a married pair can feel 
who are true to each other is necessary to 



THE HALLOWING OF HOME. 1 7 

that parental character to which children 
are indebted for the best influences of their 
life. Parents who are not true to each 
other are not capable of giving their chil- 
dren either the securities or the blessed 
influence of a true home. The child of a 
mother " the heart of whose husband can- 
not safely trust in her/' or of a father whose 
affection roves away from her to whom it is 
plighted, has its young life touched with a 
dismal blight. The most subtile and pene- 
trating of evil influences distill upon its cra- 
dle, poison the air which it breathes and the 
very milk wherewith it is nourished. 

The seventh commandment, faithfully 
kept, is the true safeguard of all that is 
left on earth of the primitive Paradise. 

This commandment is also the safeguard 
of personal purity. " Chastity in heart, 
speech and behavior " is its strict require- 
ment. Nor is this requirement too strict 
Nothing less would sufficiently guard the 
sacred interests to which it relates. The 
personal purity which is true obedience 
to this commandment must sweeten all 
our conversation, all our songs, all our 



1 8 HOME WHISPERS. 

thoughts, all our intercourse and all our 
solitude. 

Watchfully, prayerfully, resolutely "keep 
thyself pure" and thou (whosoever thou art) 
shalt find this true obedience to God's com- 
mandment its own constant reward. It, 
more than everything else, assures health 
to the body and cheerfulness to the mind. 
It alone qualifies man and woman for that 
holy and pure union which is the true 
hallowing of home, in which earthly life is 
perfected and in which heaven begins. 



III. 

FAMILY WORSHIP. 

WHAT can be more beautifully appro- 
priate than the worship of God in 
families ? 

Here is a little company of human beings, 
joined together in the most intimate con- 
nection, dwelling under one roof, fed at one 
table, supplied with the necessaries of life 
from sources of income that are common 
to them all, feeling themselves to have al- 
together common interests, common wants 
and common exposures. It is granted that 
they all ought to worship God ; is it not 
appropriate that they should worship him 
together? Each of them ought to thank 
God for his daily food, and daily to ask God 
for the needed supply. But the family take 
their food together. It is supplied from a 
common store and spread upon a common 

19 



20 HOME WHISPERS. 

table, and the daily gatherings around that 
table are the recognized symbol of their 
close intimacy. Is there any other scene 
which ought. to be sanctified with prayer, if 
not that where a family most frequently look 
in each other's faces, where the responsible 
providers distribute the liberal provision, 
where parental love lavishes itself upon its 
tender objects, and where the children not 
only have their bodies nurtured, but their 
minds and manners cultivated ? 

A prayerless family meal is a most un- 
christian, a most ungodly, thing, and seldom 
does that graceless spirit whose name is 
Fashion show her impiety more plainly than 
when, at a social entertainment, she whispers 
that, as the family table would be too narrow 
for so numerous a company, so the family 
custom of giving" thanks at table is too 
homely for so splendid an occasion — just 
as if the larger and costlier provision did 
not need the divine blessing, and did not 
call for thanks, as much as the ordinary 
meal, and just as if an unblest meal, par- 
taken by a numerous company scattered 
through ample parlors, were any more 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 21 



Christian than the same thing at an ordi- 
nary table ! 

Nor is it only at table that families should 
worship. Sheltered by one roof, the family 
have laid them down in peace and slept, 
and awoke in safety, because the Lord hath 
sustained them. Coming from their several 
chambers, they meet and exchange their 
affectionate salutations, glad to feel "We 
are all here." It is a common protection 
which they have shared. They have to- 
gether been kept from the assassin, from 
the fire, from " the pestilence that walketh 
in darkness." Should not they kneel to- 
gether and give thanks to their heavenly 
Guardian ? They are going forth too to 
duties and to dangers, and they need a 
common guidance ; shall they not ask for 
it together ? And at the close of the day 
have they not equal reasons for united 
prayer and thanksgiving ? They have all 
been led and kept by one Providence, and 
they all need to commit themselves to one 
divine Guardian. 

There will be mornings when all have 
not come from their chambers in the glow 



22 HOME WHISPERS. 

and the joy of health ; there will be even- 
ings when the family will sadly gather, re- 
turning from a new grave. Thenceforth, 
at the table and at the fireside, there will be 
" one vacant chair." All families must have 
these days of sorrow. What shall they do 
with this sorrow ? To whom shall they tell 
it? On whose friendly strength shall they 
lay it ? There is no such other place for 
a bereaved family to soothe and comfort 
themselves as at their family altar. Is it 
the father that is gone ? They will best 
find comfort kneeling together and pouring 
out their prayers from their broken hearts 
through the channel perhaps of a feebler 
and softer voice than that to whose manly 
tones they were accustomed. 

Or has one of the little ones been taken ? 
The table must henceforth lack the light of 
his happy face — the house will no more ring 
with his merry laugh ; but there is no sweeter 
memory, when you see the white hands laid 
together on the still breast, than that you 
had seen them folded on the edge of the 
table at the giving of thanks or on the chair 
by your side at the daily worship. 



FA MIL Y WORSHIP, 2$ 

In joy and sorrow, amid all the varieties 
of domestic experience, they who live to- 
gether may most appropriately and bene- 
ficially worship together. 

It is of most wholesome religious effect 
for any family to listen daily together to the 
reading of some short portion of God's 
word — to hear each other's voices uniting 
in some sacred hymn or psalm, singing it 
to some tune that helps and deepens its 
salutary impression. There is no form of 
social worship the utility of which is better 
attested than family worship. It is like the 
nightly dews, which fall so silently and so 
little force themselves upon attention. We 
could perhaps better do without showers 
than without these. Occasional thunder- 
storms are no substitute for continual dews. 
As little can public religious services safely 
displace the daily practice of family worship. 
Do any busy Christians think they cannot 
afford the time for daily family prayer? 
You cannot afford to omit it. " Prayer and 
provender never hinder a man on a jour- 
ney." The few minutes necessary can be 
devoted to family worship, before or after 



24 HOME WHISPERS. 

the morning meal, in the busiest day, as 
well as the few minutes necessary to the 
meal itself. To omit the one for the saving 
of time is not less unwise than to omit the 
other. 

The Christian who " will walk within his 
house with a perfect heart " (Ps. 101 : 2) 
should daily lead his household in a clear, 
audible expression of their desires and their 
thankful acknowledgments to God. It is 
worthy of careful study how this daily ex- 
ercise may be made attractive, instructive 
and influential to children. Yet I would 
emphasize the assurance that the simple 
fact of a daily express acknowledgment of 
God, daily coming more than once into his 
presence with solemn recognition of it, is 
of itself steadily and powerfully influential 
in making the life of a family what it ought 
to be. 

There should be in a home no day with- 
out family worship — no sitting down at the 
home table without express, thankful ac- 
knowledgment of God as the Giver of daily 
food and of all daily blessings. Nor is it 
of slight importance that all the family 



FAMILY WORSHIP* 2$ 

should be present together, visibly uniting 
in this brief act of worship at the table. 
For any to loiter in chambers or passages 
until the blessing is over and the eating 
begun is bad, on the score of decorum — 
worse, as encouraging dilatory habits- 
worst of all, as a slight to God. 



IV. 

FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 

THE opinion is not unfrequently ex- 
pressed that family government and 
discipline are not so faithfully administered 
now as in the days of our fathers. I am 
not convinced that this is a just complaint. 
I am not apt to think that " the former days 
were better than these," and I find in Script- 
ure a clear intimation that such a murmur- 
ing is neither new nor wise (Eccles. 7 : 10). 
Yet doubtless we may and ought to en- 
deavor that the future days shall be better 
than these. 

Omitting all comparison with the past, it 
is necessary to urge continually upon the 
young the obligation to reverence and obey 
their parents according to the fifth com- 
mandment, the commandment with promise, 
and to exhort parents to "bring up their 

26 



FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 2J 

children in the nurture and admonition of 
the Lord." In order that any parent may 
be qualified for such responsibility he must 
be fixed in the steadfast purpose to lead an 
upright, conscientious, godly life at home. 
The attempt to enforce parental authority 
in opposition to parental example is an un- 
natural and absurd attempt. An eminent 
missionary tells of a Mohammedan who, 
having observed the obedient and lovely 
behavior of the missionary's children, went 
home, called all his own children together 
and gave them a severe flogging, declaring 
his intention to make them all behave " like 
that American's children." " But," said the 
candid Moslem afterward, " I found that 
useless. I learned that if I would have my 
children do right, I must do right myself." 

Let any Christian parent who smiles at 
this story not neglect to ask whether, if he 
has never made that mistake so rudely, he 
may not have made it as really, and, con- 
sidering the finer sensibilities which his 
children may have inherited, possibly not 
less hurtfully. Beware ! Lead your chil- 
dren the right way ; you cannot drive them 



28 HOME WHISPERS. 

into it while you go another way. To have 
parental authority point one way, and pa- 
rental example attract another way, is a 
miserable exhibition of folly. I am afraid 
that in various degrees this is not uncom- 
mon. Do not some children witness exhi- 
bitions of passion or of self-indulgence in 
parents who mourn that they cannot bring 
their children to practice the self-control 
or the self-denial which they recommend ? 
Nothing is more fundamental to character 
than conscientious truthfulness, yet there 
are parents who make deception a frequent 
means for controlling little children. I 
would just as soon tell a woman that a 
piece of goods was silk which I knew to be 
cotton, or tell a man that a horse was sound 
which I knew to be spavined, or that a note 
or coin was good which I knew to be spu- 
rious, as to tell a little child that a medicine 
was sweet which I knew to be bitter, or try 
to influence his conduct by any promise or 
any threat which I did not expect and intend 
to fulfill. Not a few children are, in just 
such ways, taught by their own parents 
to lie. I do not affirm that there is more 



FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 2Q 

of this in our own than in former days, but 
right sure am I that there is much more of 
it than there ever ought to be. Nothing is 
more important to children than to be able 
to rely upon the word of their parents with 
unquestioning confidence — to feel that their 
parents are incapable of any attempt to de- 
ceive. 

I am uttering the veriest truism when I 
say that in nothing whatever should a pa- 
rent's instruction to his children lack faithful 
exemplification in the conduct of the parent 
which the children witness. But one of the 
strangest delusions is, that parental conduct 
will not be accurately observed by children. 
Any wrong self-indulgence, any untruthful- 
ness at home, however a parent may dis- 
guise it to himself, is not at all likely to be 
unnoticed by the children. Even if it is not 
distinctly seen by them, it will be felt, for it 
taints the moral atmosphere of the home. 



V. 



THE RELATION OF DOMESTIC VIRTUE TO PUBLIC 
VIRTUE. 

IT seems often to be assumed that a man 
may be an exemplary patriot who is 
vicious in his private character. It would 
be more safe and more just to assume that 
a man who sets bad examples to his children 
at home is not a safe leader for a nation — 
that a man whose wife cannot safely trust 
him is not fit to be trusted by the people. 

You remember how often and how stren- 
uously Paul insisted upon wisdom and good- 
ness demonstrated in home-life as necessary 
qualifications for offices in the Church : "For 
if a man know not how to rule his own 
house, how shall he take care of the Church 
of God?" (i Tim. 3:5). 

The State is as really God's ordinance as 
the Church. Shall we, then, believe that a 
man of bad life at home is fit to direct public 
30 



DOMESTIC VIRTUE AND PUBLIC VIRTUE. 3 1 

life at the capital ? The family, as God has 
constituted it, is the fundamental form of 
human society. A happy and virtuous 
commonwealth can possibly be made up 
only of happy and virtuous households. 
Home life is ever the source of public life. 
The stream can never flow higher than its 
fountains. Home virtue must ever be the 
basis of national virtue and the guarantee 
of national well-being. 

There is a quite general impression that 
the domestic life of the present sovereign 
of England is without moral stain and is a 
worthy example to the households of Chris- 
tendom. It is equally apparent that the 
present reign, already longer than David's 
or Solomon's, is unsurpassed in prosperity. 
The connection between these two facts 
cannot be stated with precision. I would not 
make any exaggerated statement. Much of 
England's temporal prosperity, her wealth 
and her power, has seemed to be success- 
fully sought by methods that cannot be 
esteemed unselfish or just. What canker 
there may yet be found consuming such 
wealth, and what dry rot may be preparing 



32 HOME WHISPERS. 

the power thus acquired to crumble, we 
must wait for the on-moving history to re- 
veal. There are facts in that direction that 
may well make an Englishman " tremble for 
his country when he remembers that God is 
just." Nevertheless, the influence which 
has been emanating for all these many years 
from that happy royal home has seemed to 
be morally wholesome and favorable to 
whatever is pure and lovely and of good 
report. I am sure that the health and vigor 
and hope of that kingdom are better as- 
sured by the diffusion through its population 
of such virtuous sentiments and principles 
and affections than by*all that can be won 
by arms or secured by prosperous busi- 
ness or wise diplomacy. 

I hold the same hopes and the same fears 
for my own country. Assure me of tem- 
perance and purity and Sabbath-keeping 
and reverent, obedient study of God's holy 
word in the Presidential mansion and in the 
homes of Senators, Representatives, secre- 
taries and judges, and I will have no fear 
of what will come to our country in the 
administration of its government. But if 



DOMESTIC VIRTUE AND PUBLIC VIRTUE. 33 

the citizens show contempt for God's laws 
and institutions by entrusting the adminis- 
tration of government to men whose lives 
taint their own homes with moral leprosy, if 
purity and rectitude of home life are habit- 
ually voted not essential for public men, we 
are pitching our tents toward Sodom, and 
shall soon smell its brimstone. 



VI. 

GOD'S RELATION TO MOTHERS. 

WHEN a true-hearted mother "feels 
for the first time her first-born's 
breath," she not only is conscious of her 
tender relation to that new-born creature, 
but feels a new tenderness and sacredness 
added to her relation to her husband. Dear 
as the babe is considered as her own, it is 
yet more precious inasmuch as it is his own. 
Closely and tenderly as she was united to 
him before, she feels the union to be more 
close and tender now. Yet more solemnly 
does the Christian mother find the expe- 
rience of maternity giving a new precious- 
ness and sacredness to her relation to God. 
She was his creature before ; now she is also 
the mother of his creature. The great God, 
Author and Giver of life, has come very 
near to her. She has experienced in her 
own person the most marvelous exercise 
of his power. All levity touching this mar- 

34 



GOD'S RELATION TO MOTHERS, 35 

vel is profane. The Bible teaches us to 

regard it with the utmost reverence and 

solemnity (Ps. 139: 14-17): 

" I will praise thee ; for I am fearfully and 

wonderfully made : 

Marvelous are thy works ; and that my 

soul knoweth right well. 
My substance was not hid from thee, 

when I was made in secret, 
And curiously wrought in the lowest 

parts of the earth. 
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet 

being unperfect ; 
And in thy book all my members were 

written, 
Which in continuance were fashioned, 
When as yet there was none of them. 
How precious also are thy thoughts unto 

me, O God ! 
How great is the sum of them !" 
The birth of a child is a more wonderful 
event than the creation of a material world. 
God causes a new human life to begin in 
mysterious connection with the life of the 
mother. It is possible to receive such a gift 
with natural joy without duly regarding the 



36 HOME WHISPERS. 

divine Giver. It is possible to feel the gush 
of this new fountain of affection without 
thoughtfully considering Him whose power 
has opened it. Perhaps it is possible for a 
woman to look upon her child, and to feel 
the pleasing emotions connected with the 
thought that it is her child and her hus- 
band's child, without remembering that it 
is a gift of God. It is not so with Chris- 
tian mothers. They remember that God has 
come near to them in a wonderful manner, 
and by giving them a peculiar experience 
of his power has brought them into a new 
relation to himself. This relation is dis- 
tinctly recognized in his word, and he has 
made it the subject of a special covenant. 
This covenant is indeed with both parents 
if they both are believers (Gal. 3 : 28, 29) : 
" There is neither male nor female : for ye 
are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be 
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and 
heirs according to the promise." 

Let no believer in Christ doubt that the 
God of Abraham is pledged to be " a God 
to him and to his seed after him " (Gen. 1 7 : 
7). But the mother who claims this promise 



GOD'S RELATION TO MOTHERS. 2>7 

must make the same unreserved commit- 
ment of her child to God which she makes 
of herself. This, when you view God 
rightly, is your highest privilege. You 
commit your child to God as trustfully, 
as joyfully, as you lay it in the arms of 
its father. This may, by and by, involve 
your consent to a separation. He who 
gave may take your child to himself, or, 
letting you nurse and rear the child for him, 
may then show you that he " hath need of 
him " in some far-off land. There are 
many mothers who can testify that, keen 
as the pang of such parting is, it opens a 
new fountain of holy joy that flows on in a 
clear and steady stream of precious expe- 
rience. When you have fully given to God, 
not only yourselves, but those dearer selves, 
your children ; when you have learned to think 
of them as his, and to train them as his, and 
to love them as his, even as you always 
think of them as the children of him whom of 
all men you hold in highest esteem and love, 
— then will you know how sacred, how 
sanctifying and how heavenly God has de- 
signed and fitted the maternal relation to be. 



VII. 

CHRIST'S RELATION TO MOTHERS. 

" T T AIL, highly favored ! blessed art thou 
JLX among women. " The heart of every 
Christian man responds " Amen " to that 
angelic salutation. How much more ten- 
derly the heart of every Christian woman ! 
It is well for mothers often to visit in 
imagination that Galilean cottage in which 
the child Jesus was brought up, growing 
" in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
God and man" (Luke 2 : 52). 

You will not envy that favored mother, 
but your contemplation of her with her holy 
Child may help you to influence your own 
little ones to become like him. It will nat- 
urally induce that mood of gentle faithful- 
ness which is best adapted to the right 
fulfillment of motherly duties. Returning 
from such visits to Nazareth, your whole 
air and manner will be characterized by all 

38 



CHRIST'S RELATION TO MOTHERS. 39 

that is most happily influential with children. 
If at any time you need power to influence 
aright a wayward boy and to soothe his tur- 
bulent spirit to gentleness, you are most 
likely to find yourself clothed with that 
power if he rushes into your presence 
when you have the New Testament in your 
hand, the reading of which has just taken 
you to Nazareth or to Bethlehem, and while 
you are hiding in your heart the precious 
things which Mary so carefully kept in hers 
(Luke 2:51). It will help you in all the 
perplexities and under all the burdens of 
maternal experience to reflect that the Lord 
Jesus humbled himself to be born of a 
human mother, to sleep on her breast, to 
be nurtured, protected, taught by her. Has 
not this hallowed human maternity ? 

How was human motherhood honored 
by the Son of Mary in the tender words in 
which he made provision for her in the 
midst of his dying agony ! While the sword 
by which her holy Son was smitten for our 
offences was piercing through her soul she 
did not fail of receiving the sweetest possi- 
ble consolation in the assurance that he re- 



40 HOME WHISPERS, 

membered her, observed her, felt for her. 
Burdened with the sin of the world, never- 
theless he had a special thought, a special 
care, a special word, for the mother who 
bore him. 

All that was human in Jesus is imitable 
by your children. By his grace they may 
especially imitate his filial tenderness and 
dutifulness. In life and in death he may be 
their example. 

No other scene in the life of our Lord is 
more beautiful than that of his taking little 
children in his arms. He cared no more 
for those little children than he cares now 
for yours. Do not allow yourself to think 
that only when they are grown, or grown 
much older than they are now, can your 
children be disciples of Jesus. Do they 
love you ? Then cannot they love him ? 
Are they sorry for having grieved or dis- 
pleased you ? Do they promptly leave off 
what they find grieving you ? Then cannot 
they repent toward him ? Are they made 
happy by your forgiveness ? Then cannot 
they ask for his, and get it ? As soon as 
they can confide in you, and trustfully and 



CHRIST'S RELATION TO MOTHERS. 41 

submissively accept as best whatever you 
appoint for them, they can trust him and be 
submissive to him. 

Yes, Christian mother, bring your little 
children to Christ. He bids you. He as- 
sures you that the kingdom of heaven is 
theirs (Matt. 19 : 14). Let nothing keep you 
from bringing them. " Forbid them not," 
he says. If those who preach the gospel 
ever seem to propose doctrines too difficult 
for children to understand, as if the intelli- 
gent reception of them were necessary to 
the saving reception of Christ, do not you 
believe it. We are doubtless too apt to fall 
into a technical and scholastic way of speak- 
ing upon religious subjects which forbids 
the reception of the gospel by little children. 
But we have no right to keep them away 
from him while they are learning long cate- 
chisms and difficult definitions. Let them 
come to him as soon as they can know him, 
and then go on learning of him from cate- 
chisms and hymns and Bible-verses and 
mothers' faces. They need only to know that 
they are sinful (let them call it " naughty," 
if they understand that better), and un- 



42 HOME WHISPERS. 

happy on that account, and that Christ loves 
them and is able to make them good and 
happy. If you can teach them so much, 
and can secure by your prayers God's help 
to make them believe it, they may come to 
Christ. Nay, in so believing they have 
come to him and are embraced in the arms 
of his love. 

Hold fast to Christ's words : " Forbid 
them not." Keep fast hold of the sweet 
assurance which those words convey. Let 
nothing discourage you ; let no man prevent 
you from bringing your children to Christ 
in humble prayer and leading them in his 
way by faithful instruction and discipline, 
expecting his effectual blessing thereon. 

And oh, beware lest it should be your- 
selves who forbid them or prevent them 
from coming to him. It might be by your 
frivolity, your impatience, your heedless- 
ness, your indulgence, your unholy example. 
" But, beloved, we are persuaded better 
things of you, and things that accompany 
salvation, though we thus speak." Let the 
little children come ; bring them. 



VIII. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE FAMILY. 

FEW persons can hear thunder roll or 
the waves dash or the wind roar with- 
out thinking of God. You cannot stand 
alone below Niagara and gaze up at its 
awful flood, you cannot walk abroad in a 
clear night and look up at the numberless 
worlds and suns in the deep sky, without 
feeling that God is there. 

Looking out of your window or walking 
through your garden, riding along by fields 
rich in verdure or yellow with ripening 
grain, do you not behold God's hand car- 
rying on those beautiful silent processes 
as plainly as in ruling the ocean and the 
storm ? 

You are a mother. A little creature lies 
on your lap " whose pulse first caught its 
tiny stroke, whose blood its crimson hue, 
from your own." You watch its quiet 

43 



44 HOME WHISPERS. 

sleep ; you feel its soft breath ; you touch 
its dimpled hand; you admire its graceful 
form, its perfect limbs, its delicate complex- 
ion. It wakes. It opens its deep eyes to 
yours. Its baby smile answers back to 
your look of love and yearning. Can you 
experience this and not recognize God, the 
Maker and Giver? Could any wind or 
thunder be to you more solemnly the voice 
of God than the soft sound of your baby's 
breathing ? 

When we speak of the Holy Spirit, we 
are apt to be thinking of pentecostal scenes, 
of " cloven tongues like as of fire," of over- 
powering divine manifestations. We think 
of large assemblies of people thrilled and 
moved by the word of God solemnly 
preached to them, many of them trembling 
and crying out, " What must we do to be 
saved?" and soon brought to rejoice in the 
hope of salvation. 

This is the work of the Holy Spirit, but 
this is not his only work. May not Chris- 
tians in praying for the Holy Spirit have 
their minds too exclusively directed to such 
public displays of his power ? It is your 



THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE FAMILY. 45 

privilege to have the Holy Spirit dwell in 
your home and constantly help your en- 
deavors to save the souls of your children. 

Your children need the Holy Spirit f They 
have a contaminated, corrupted nature. The 
seeds of evil dispositions are in their minds, 
and will grow up to a sad and bitter har- 
vest unless the Holy Spirit, by his renewing 
power, shall prevent. Your children have 
this evil nature from the first, and they show 
it very early, paining your hearts by their 
selfish ways. What will you do about it ? 
What can you do ? How will you keep the 
sweet babe on your lap from changing into 
a selfish, headstrong, wicked boy and grow- 
ing up to be a hard, unprincipled, ungodly 
man ? Sweet and innocent as that babe is, 
he has only to grow up and you know not 
what moral monster he may be. Ungodly 
and impenitent you may be sure that he 
will be unless the Holy Spirit changes his 
nature. 

The children that have passed out of 
babyhood, and now own the toys about 
your house and fill your house with the 
sounds of their childish play, — how con- 



46 HOME WHISPERS. 

stantly you need to watch them ! How 
much anxiety you have for them ! Can 
you change them ? Without the Holy 
Spirit all your care, all your discipline, all 
your love, will not save them ; they will 
grow up selfish, ungodly, impenitent. 

Your chilth'en can have the Holy Spirit. 
If your prayer can procure this divine gift 
for yourselves, can it not for your children ? 
Consider God's covenant with you in respect 
to your children and your Saviours expressed 
regard for children, his welcome of them to 
his kingdom, and can you doubt that prayer 
in his name for the Holy Spirit will be as 
readily heard on behalf of them as of your- 
selves ? Then let your daily prayer be for 
the renewing power of the Holy Spirit upon 
your children. Let this prayer be in be- 
lieving expectation of a favorable answer. 

The tokens of a favorable -answer may not 
be altogether like those looked for in public 
places and in respect to mature minds. Such 
views of truth as make a public assembly 
"weep and melt and tremble," a little child 
cannot take into its mind. The Holy Spirit 
will not work a miracle in order that it may. 



THE HOL Y SPIRIT IN THE FA MIL Y. 47 

But a little child — a very little one — may be 
made to feel that selfishness and petulance 
and disobedience are wicked ; it may be 
made conscious of these evil tempers in 
itself, and ashamed and sorry for them ; and 
it may become unselfish and slow to anger 
and obedient. Sometimes these effects are 
evidently produced in infant minds ; and 
shall not " love, joy, peace, long- suffering, 
gentleness, meekness, self-control " in a child 
be gratefully acknowledged as " the fruit of 
the Spirit " ? These gracious effects should 
not be overlooked nor undervalued because 
they came not with startling suddenness, if 
they have come. Let them be gradual and 
gentle, and silent as the growth of the little 
ones' bodies ; only let them be evident, and 
they should be as readily acknowledged. 

Beware of repelling your divine Helper. 
Be quick to observe all that may properly 
be ascribed to his influence upon your chil- 
dren's minds, and cherish that sacred in- 
fluence. " Quench not the Spirit." Do not 
suppose that the Holy Spirit's influence can 
be upon your child only when he is directly 
thinking of some religious lesson. Hope 



48 HOME WHISPERS. 

rather, and pray for that gracious power to 
abide upon him continually, steadily im- 
proving his temper and his behavior. If 
your little son has sat by your side learning 
his Bible-lesson, and has given earnest at- 
tention while you explained it to him ; if a 
look of solemnity gathered on his face while 
you enforced upon his conscience the duty 
which the lesson taught ; if a tear stole 
down his cheek or a sob escaped from his 
breast or an honest resolve compressed his 
lips or spoke out in artless words of prom- 
ise, — do not conclude that all this was seed 
sown by the wayside because in a few min- 
utes afterward his merry voice comes to you 
from the playground, or because you look 
out of the window and see him scuffling 
with his mates, the merriest and most active 
of them all. Rather offer up a believing 
prayer that the Holy Spirit will be with him 
there, making him generous, courageous 
and truthful ; that the Bible-lesson may 
there and then be faithfully applied and 
obeyed ; that the playground may be the 
very scene upon which he will illustrate the 
beauty, the consistency and the regulating 



THE HOL Y SPIRIT IN THE FA MIL Y 49 

power of Christian principle ; that his be- 
havior may be altogether such as becomes 
a Christian child — such behavior as Mary 
may have seen when looking out from the 
door of her home in Nazareth. 

If at evening your little daughter has 
called you to her bedside and with tears 
and sobbing has confessed some fault to 
you, and begged you to pray that God will 
forgive her and make her good, and not let 
her be wicked and miserable for ever in 
hell, do not conclude that your prayer has 
not been fulfilled because in a few minutes 
she has fallen into a tranquil and sweet 
sleep. Believe rather that the peace of 
God, serene and beautiful as that healthy 
sleep, has fallen upon her spirit and shall 
bless her waking — sweet token that her 
sins are forgiven and happy fruit of the 
Holy Spirit's inworking. 

If such scenes of tenderness are wanting, 
yet if you are permitted to see the thought- 
ful dutifulness, the love of simple prayer, 
the interested attention to the word of God 
and to parental instruction, and conscien- 
tious endeavor to be obedient to both, with 
4 



50 HOME WHISPERS. 

gradually increasing willingness to forego 
selfish indulgences for the sake of others 
and for the sake of duty, do not doubt that 
this is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

The work of the Holy Spirit is to be in 
connection with your instruction and disci- 
pline. He aids your endeavors and makes 
them successful. The sun and rain are not 
to supersede the human culture, but to 
make it effectual. Then pray not only, but 
study to increase your skill and to improve 
your methods. Counsel with other mothers, 
with your husband, with your pastor ; read 
instructive books. Study your children, 
their tempers, their liabilities, their expo- 
sures, their besetting sins, the means and 
motives by which they can be most health- 
fully influenced. Study in their daily lives 
the illustration of Bible truths. Such study, 
quickened by maternal love and guided by 
prayer, will be the most effectual to contin- 
ual increase of maternal wisdom. 

You need the Holy Spirit putting forth 
his gracious power upon yotir own so7iL 
Without that you will not have the needed 
patience and meekness and wisdom and 



THE HOL Y SPIRIT IN THE FAMIL K 5 I 

love. Natural affection is not enough, and 
is not reliable. Instinctive maternal fond- 
ness is beautiful, even in birds and beasts. 
But that may do nothing for the soul of a 
child but to pet it and spoil it and ruin it 
by stimulating the development of selfish 
and unholy impulses. You need for your 
holy work of rearing a child for heaven a 
love that is not earthly, that is not an in- 
stinct — a love that is heavenly, pure, Christ- 
like. Such love is " the fruit of the Spirit/' 
Seek the Holy Spirit's help for yourself. 
Let your ideas of the help which you need 
be definite, made so by reflection. Seek 
the very help which you need, simply, 
earnestly, expectantly. " Seek, and ye 
shall find." 

Be not soon wearied. Never be dis- 
couraged. " Learn to labor and to wait." 
I am not proposing to you to be satisfied 
while you do not see evidence of your chil- 
dren's piety, nor carelessly to think, " They 
will be well enough by and by." Far from 
it. Never cease your watchfulness. But, 
having done all you can, then commit all 
to God trustfully and cheerfully. Do not 



52 HOME WHISPERS. 

worry. Wait, not in indolence, but wait in 
faith and prayer, for God to work. 

Seek his influence on you to make you what 
you wish your children to be, He can do it. 
You cannot be too deeply impressed with 
the thought that the Holy Spirit will bless 
your children, if at all, in connection with 
yourself. Then be careful of yourself. 
Keep yourself pure ; keep yourself patient ; 
keep yourself calm, meek, gentle ; keep 
yourself (God help you to do so !) in the 
state in which you wish your children to 
be. 

You cannot have failed to observe that 
marvel of your physical being whereby 
anything in the least degree noxious in 
your diet imparts its harmful influence to 
the natural food of your babe, and soon 
shows its effect upon its delicate system. 
Not less susceptible are your children's 
souls, and no less certainly do they imbibe 
an evil influence from whatever unfavor- 
ably affects your own soul. Then keep 
your soul in a wholesome state. Guard 
yourself from all evil tempers for your chil- 
dren's sake. Try to be, pray to be, in 



THE HOL Y SPIRIT IN THE TAMIL Y. 53 

behavior and in spirit, all that you wish 
them to be. It is likely that they will be 
mainly what you are. 

I know how heavily this thought may 
oppress you. Cast the burden of it on the 
Lord. Take comfort and courage from his 
offer of help. He can fit you for the work 
to which he calls you. He will if you truly 
desire him to do so. What else can he be 
more willing to do for you ? 

Is there already a little grave on which 
you have laid white blossoms and dropped 
motherly tears ? 

"There is no fold, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb is there; 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 
But has one vacant chair." 

That little one, taken from the cradle in 
your home, is " safe in the arms of Jesus. " 
Your sighs for it are not sighs of anxiety. 
The pain of that separation the Comforter, 
dwelling with you, will soothe and heal. Do 
not think that he cares more for that child 
gathered into eternal safety than for those 
left with you amid these earthly exposures. 
Do not think the Holy Spirit more ready 



54 HOME WHISPERS. 

to comfort you in that sorrow than to 
strengthen you for this work and steady 
you in this care and help and cheer you in 
these solicitudes. " He dwelleth with you, 
and shall be in you " (John 14: 17). Rec- 
ognize him. Trust his present help. Be- 
lieve assuredly that the Holy Spirit is will- 
ing to abide in your home, hallowing all its 
scenes and all its experiences, and preparing 
you and your family by and by to dwell to- 
gether in a " house not made with hands " 
"as children dwell at home." 



IX. 

THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. 

IT is not of those who die in infancy that 
I speak. I speak of the salvation of 
infants who do not die in infancy. I speak 
of salvation from sin beginning in infancy, 
progressing through childhood and man- 
hood, and consummated in the lifelong be- 
liever's abundant entrance into heavenly 
glory. I speak not of those infants that 
are taken away from the arms and the care 
of parents, and for whose nurture and train- 
ing not their parents are responsible, but 
perhaps their angels, which do always be- 
hold the face of the divine Father. I speak 
of those infants that are to be nurtured 
and reared and disciplined in these earthly 
homes, within the embraces of this human 
care and prayer. 

My question is, May these infants be 
saved? May they be saved as infants, 

55 



$6 HOME WHISPERS. 

saved while yet they are infants, saved now 
— so saved now that, growing up here, de- 
veloping into full and unquestionable vol- 
untariness and moral responsibility here, 
going forth from these homes into schools, 
into active business, into adult life, they will 
all their lives be Christians, saints, saved 
persons ? 

i. An affirmative answer to this question 
involves no theoretical difficulties which do 
not equally belong to the affirmation that 
those dying in infancy are saved. 

All who regard infants dying in infancy 
as needing any saving at all ascribe their 
salvation to the redeeming Christ and the 
regenerating Holy Spirit. It is pertinent, 
then, to ask what is there which these divine 
Persons, this divine Saviour, does for a dying 
infant which he may not as easily and as 
legitimately do for an infant which is to live 
on here for threescore or fourscore years ? 
What theological or metaphysical difficulty 
troubles you here which is not equally in 
your way there ? What Scripture promise 
gives you comfort and hope there which is 
not also available here ? 



THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. S7 

2. There are Christian experiences the 
genuineness and validity of which the most 
judicious observers acknowledge, the be- 
ginning of which cannot be marked in the 
consciousness of the subjects nor in the 
observation of their friends or guardians. 
In other words, there are true Christians, 
credibly manifesting themselves as such, 
giving all the recognized evidences of a 
true religious experience, producing in their 
godly lives all the fruits of the Spirit, as the 
inspired Scriptures describe them, maintain- 
ing and adorning a Christian profession, in 
whom this experience has not begun within 
their conscious remembrance. They have 
no memory of a time when they did not 
love God and loathe sin and trust Christ 
and try to obey him as heartily as they 
do now. 

It is commonly admitted that there are 
some such cases, but it is also commonly 
assumed that they are exceptional cases 
and rare. My own conviction is that they 
are numerous, and that they deserve more 
ready and thankful recognition than they 
customarily receive. 



58 HOME WHISPERS. 

3. There are persons in considerable 
numbers in our evangelical congregations 
whose lives are such as would not discredit 
a Christian profession, in all respects in 
which their lives are subject to human ob- 
servation, who do not make such a profes- 
sion, and who dare not, because they have 
had no experience of a sudden and decisive 
change in the state of their minds — nothing 
which seems to them fit to be described as 
a change of heart or a new birth. 

I am not speaking of self-righteous per- 
sons, who haughtily reject the scriptural 
view of human sinfulness — who do not feel 
the need of the Physician because they 
count themselves whole. I am not speaking 
of those who see nothing in Christianity 
but a moral code, and count themselves 
good enough Christians, or something bet- 
ter than Christians, because they pay cash, 
one hundred cents to the dollar, and do not 
get drunk nor let a neighbor starve to death. 
I am speaking of men and women who listen 
attentively and reverently to the gospel ; 
whose solemn faces in their pews and whose 
frank, thoughtful words when we talk with 



THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. 59 

them attest the sincerity with which they 
accept our evangelical preaching ; who have 
and avow a deep and tender sense of their 
own sinfulness ; who do not at all doubt 
the sufficiency of Christ's atonement nor 
his ability and willingness to save them, 
but do painfully doubt whether what they 
are conscious of amounts to true evangel- 
ical faith. They do not feel sure that they 
are regenerate, mainly because they have 
no remembrance of any such change con- 
sciously taking place in them as they un- 
derstand regeneration to be, although quite 
evidently they are in the habitual exercise 
of that disposition which belongs to the re- 
generate mind. 

When such persons die, not only do their 
wives and children hope that they are saved, 
but very often their pastors and their most 
thoughtful and orthodox neighbors cherish 
this hope for them. This hope justifies 
itself by divers sorts of special pleading. 
Most commonly, I think, it assumes that 
such persons have lived all their lives very 
near to the kingdom of heaven, and have 



60 HOME WHISPERS. 

by God's effectual grace been brought quite 
into it shortly before their death. 

Let me again guard myself against pos- 
sible misapprehension. I am not speaking 
of those sad cases in which the fondness of 
friends accepts as evidence of regeneration 
some expression of willingness to die from 
one whose life has been profligate or care- 
lessly worldly — a willingness to die which 
may be only stolid indifference to life in- 
duced by opiates or by disease. I am not 
referring to cases of that kind at all. I am 
speaking of those thoughtful, reverent, con- 
scientious persons who never dared count 
themselves Christians, never felt " good 
enough to join the Church/' and who lie 
on deathbeds, not joyful, not triumphant, 
not positively hopeful, not even now daring 
to claim Christ's promises as ensuring their 
safety, yet glorifying him by most distinct 
testimony to the fullness and sufficiency of 
his provision and offers. They take all the 
blame on themselves if they do perish, and 
in that submissive acquiescence in God's 
holy sovereignty and satisfaction with God's 
perfect character they rest in a serenity 



THE SALVATION OF INFANTS, 6 1 

which they cannot explain : they are afraid 
that it is stupor. They enjoy no other 
sound so much as the voice of prayer, no 
other visits so much as those of the pastor, 
whose personal ministrations their minds 
associate with all that is Christian. They 
give up the receding world without a mur- 
mur; they turn from every unscriptural 
scheme with disgust ; and if they dare not 
lay hold on Christ with confident hope, they 
shrink with unutterable pain from any sug- 
gestion of abandoning him or looking to 
any other Saviour. They at last fold their 
arms and close their eyes to die, plainly 
consenting to let Christ decide whether he 
can count them as his own or must say " I 
never knew you," and they have no thought 
of blaming him or hating him if he shall 
thus send them away into hopelessness. 

You cannot think that he does that ; you 
know him too well to think so. Though the 
names of these despondent ones are not on 
your roll of communicants, you believe that 
they are in the Lamb's book of life. You 
can hardly help avowing this hope more or 
less distinctly at their funerals, and it com- 



62 HOME WHISPERS, 

forts you when you write down their names 
in your funeral register, and when you look 
down from your pulpit upon the black bon- 
nets in the pews they used to sit in. 

Whether is it easier to believe that these 
persons have been all their lives impenitent, 
and have been born of God just as they 
were dying, or that they were renewed in 
their infancy and have been true disciples 
of Christ longer than they can remember — 
as long as they have been capable of loving 
and trusting him ? 

If this last is the truth, it is a great pity 
that such people cannot have the comfort 
of Christian hope during their lives. It is 
a great pity that the Church of Christ can- 
not have the additional strength and influ- 
ence which their membership in full com- 
munion would add to her. It is a great 
pity that the communities in which they live 
cannot have the testimony which they ought 
to have their mouths opened to give. It is 
wrong that Christ does not have the credit 
among men of the salvation which he really 
has wrought in those souls. Might not all 
these comforts and benefits be secured by 



THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. 63 

a more frank and ready recognition of 
infant regeneration as a fact? 

If these views are just, they have import- 
ant practical application to our pastoral 
care of children and to our parental care 
of children, for these two should blend with 
and interpenetrate each other. There is 
recently a great awakening of the ministry 
and the Church to the work of religious in- 
struction of children. Much is said of the 
importance of seeking by prayer and by all 
scriptural means the early conversion of 
children. This is right ; this is of unspeak- 
able importance. Religious instruction which 
only increases the intelligence of the young 
without touching their hearts, which makes 
them expert theologians and leaves them 
impenitent, is not only defective, but posi- 
tively harmful. It is likely to be ruinous, 
fatally hardening. We cannot be too sol- 
emnly and prayerfully in earnest to secure 
the conversion of every impenitent child. 
It cannot be secured too soon. The danger 
that it will never be secured may justly be 
regarded as increasing, in more than arith- 
metical ratio, with every week of delay. 



64 HOME WHISPERS. 

But is it right to assume that every child 
is impenitent that has not been converted? 
May not regeneration be experienced so 
early that there need be, and can be, no 
conversion ? May not the renewing power 
of the Holy Spirit come upon the soul at 
the very point where moral responsibility 
begins, at the initial point of its spiritual 
history, preventing it from entering upon 
a career of impenitence ? 

Have not we been doing the Lord's work 
too mechanically and too clumsily, assuming 
that children, even the children of prayerful 
believers, must live some years, few or many 
in an unregenerate state; must pass some 
portion of their lives in actual and positive 
impenitence ; must attain some degree of 
intellectual development and some amount 
of intelligence in impenitence ; must be- 
come conscious of impenitence, of a love 
of sin and of some more or less strenuous 
opposition to God ; must be brought con- 
sciously to yield up that opposition ; must, 
in short, be converted — i. e. turned from im- 
penitence to piety, from sin to holiness, from 
the world and the devil to God ? Too com- 



THE SAL VA TION OF INFANTS, 6$ 

monly I believe it has been assumed that 
our children must go through some such 
experience, and be able to give some clear 
account of it, before they can have a right 
to sit at Christ's table or to hope in his 
mercy or be happy in his love. I believe 
that frequently this unscriptural assumption, 
if it has not broken the bruised reed, has 
kept it bruised and weak, has dwarfed and 
distorted its growth — if it has not quenched 
the smoking flax, has kept it long smoking, 
when the true, scriptural view would have 
kindled the infant piety into a beautiful 
flame, lighting up our homes with such 
sweet brightness as is nowhere else to be 
enjoyed outside of that city of which the 
Lord God and the Lamb are the light. 

It is not true that all our children need to 
be converted, in the proper and strict sense 
of that word. There are children in some 
Christian homes who never were impenitent 
sinners ; who never were in a state of en- 
mity or opposition to God ; who never did 
set their wills in disobedience either directly 
against God or against his deputies in the 
home, their parents. This is not because 



66 HOME WHISPERS. 

they have not inherited a depraved nature, 
but because, in answer to parental prayers, 
habitually and believingly offered, the re- 
newing grace of God was vouchsafed to 
them at that earliest moment when without 
it they would have begun a life of sin. 

Let us open our eyes and look whether 
God has not granted us, this in more in- 
stances than we reckon in our Sunday- 
school classes and in our homes. I suspect 
that we have near us, with us, little true dis- 
ciples of Jesus who dare not declare them- 
selves such because virtually we have taught 
them that they cannot be such without con- 
sciously giving up what consciously they 
never had and abandoning what they never 
adhered to. 

Nor is it only children in our Sabbath- 
schools, not only those who can read, not 
only those who can commit Bible-verses to 
memory, not only those who can climb up 
into our laps and kiss us, who are inter- 
ested in our holding the truth on this sub- 
ject. It concerns those children who are 
not yet out of their cradles. It concerns 
those children who are not yet in their 



THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. 6? 

cradles. If there is such an atmosphere 
of hope and of prayer and of scriptural 
expectation in which children may be be- 
gotten and into which they may be born, 
in Christ's name let us give it to them, as 
we only can, by believing this truth and 
taking it into our hearts and prayers and 
lives. 



X. 

INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. 

THE Westminster Confession of Faith 
defines the visible Church as "con- 
sisting of all those throughout the world 
that profess the true religion, together with 
their children. " The Form of Government 
of the Presbyterian Church declares that 
"a particular church consists of a number 
of professing Christians, with their offspring, 
voluntarily associated together for divine 
worship and godly living agreeably to the 
Holy Scriptures ; and submitting to a cer- 
tain form of government." 

Shall we, then, call the children of pro- 
fessing Christians members of the visible 
Church catholic and members of the par- 
ticular church with which their parents are 
in covenant? The different answers to this 
question which are given by those who ac- 
cept the Westminster Confession probably 



INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. 69 

arise from different definitions of the word 
" members. " Perhaps the hesitation of some 
to answer that question at all may arise 
from the want of a clear definition of that 
word in their own minds. 

In general, it will be admitted that all the 
persons of whom any society consists are 
members of it. In a large part of the so- 
cieties with which we are conversant all 
members are equal in rights and privileges 
of membership. To affirm that any one is 
a member of such a society implies that he 
is entitled to all the rights and privileges to 
which any other member is entitled. 

If this is so understood by any in respect 
to membership in the Church, they may 
well hesitate or refuse to affirm the mem- 
bership of infants. But this is not true of 
all societies. Voluntary associations may 
have corporate membership investing the 
persons holding it with privileges and pow- 
ers of the highest grade, and honorary 
membership to which a lower grade of 
powers and privileges belongs. There 
may also be probationary membership, 
which will, after a time, be developed into 



70 HOME WHISPERS. 

full and complete membership by simple 
fidelity to its prescribed conditions. In so- 
cieties which are natural and not voluntary, 
into which persons come by birth and not 
by their own choice, different grades of 
membership are quite necessary. Thus 
every native of a civil commonwealth is a 
member of that commonwealth from his 
birth, entitled to some privileges, protec- 
tions, rights, while there are others to which 
he will not be entitled until he arrives at 
maturity ; and there may be rights and priv- 
ileges to which he can become entitled only 
by giving proof of mental and moral qual- 
ifications fitting him for the safe and useful 
exercise of them. Thus some of the States 
wisely require their youth to make some 
faithful use of the privileges of education 
which the States provide, before they shall 
have part in choosing the rulers of the State 
through the elective franchise. They re- 
quire, for example, that no citizen shall vote 
until he can read and write. The boy is a 
citizen, a member of the commonwealth, but 
he becomes entitled to the higher powers 
and prerogatives of citizenship by attaining 



INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. 7 1 

the age and showing himself possessed of 
the intelligence and virtue (or true man- 
hood) prescribed by its laws. 

In the family every child is born a mem- 
ber of the family, but he can never be, in 
that family, other than a subject member, 
under the authority of his parents. When 
mature he may found another family, and, 
so doing, must be its responsible head. 

The Westminster definition of the visible 
Church cannot fairly be interpreted as giving 
to children, as such, any other than a subor- 
dinate membership, analogous, in many re- 
spects, to their membership in the family 
and in the State, into which they are born. 
Yet this is a real membership. These chil- 
dren are truly members of the visible Church 
catholic and of the particular visible church 
to which their parents belong. In no other 
terms can their actual relation to the Church 
be so correctly stated. They are members 
entitled to the rights and subject to the re- 
sponsibilities of membership for which they 
are competent, including the right to be- 
come competent for them all, including the 
right to all the help which the Church and 



72 HOME WHISPERS. 

their parents can give them to attain such 
competency, and including responsibility to 
the parents, to the Church and to God for 
faithful improvement of all such helps and 
all such opportunities. 

How shall we define the church-member- 
ship which we thus affirm for the children 
of professing Christians ? What are its 
limitations ? And what are its positive 
elements ? 

They are not members " in full communion." 
This convenient phrase correctly sets forth 
the distinction which we need. A member 
in full communion is a member entitled to 
all the privileges and rights which member- 
ship can include. A member not in full 
communion is a member entitled to some, 
not to all, of such privileges. 

Infant church-members, as such, ai'e not 
entitled to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 
Worthy partaking of this ordinance implies 
intelligence and faith. It is the personal 
act of the participant. He must be able to 
" discern the Lord's body/' He is script- 
urally required to " examine himself," and 
so to be reasonably assured that he is acting 



INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. 73 

intelligently and under the influence of suit- 
able and right motives. When capable of 
doing this, and actually doing this, he par- 
takes of the bread and the cup, not as the 
child of a believer, but as a believer, — not 
as the child of parents " who profess the 
true religion/' but as a person who now for 
himself professes the true religion. 

Infant church-members are entitled to bap- 
tism. We may with equal propriety say 
that their parents are entitled to the privi- 
lege of having them baptized. The right 
is primarily in the parent, but it is in the 
parent for the child. It is the child's birth- 
right. It is the right of the child because 
he is the child of that parent under that 
covenant. The baptism of the child on the 
parent's profession of faith is to the child, 
as well as to the parent, " a holy sign and 
seal of the covenant of grace." It seals the 
child as a child of the covenant. It public- 
ly binds the parent to rear it as a child of 
the covenant. It pledges the Church to 
watch over the child, to pray for it, to 
provide suitable church privileges and ed- 
ucation for it, to hold the child within the 



74 HOME WHISPERS. 

circle of her own holy influences and guar- 
dianship, and to endeavor to bring it at length, 
by God's grace, into her full communion. 

This right to baptism, and to all which 
baptism solemnly pledges, is the child's 
birthright in the Church catholic, and is 
properly and responsibly guaranteed by 
the particular church having access to it. 
The right to baptism as a form, outward 
upon the flesh, is not worth defending. The 
right* to that which baptism signifies and 
seals is unspeakably precious and sacred. 
For the clear vindication of infant baptism, 
and that it may be filled with worthy sig- 
nificance, we need to hold to the reality of 
infant regeneration as set forth in preceding 
pages of this volume. It is not that baptism 
is regeneration, nor that it of its own force 
effects or secures regeneration, but that it 
signifies the regeneration of the child, as 
well as the parent's surrender and conse- 
cration of the child to God and pledge to 
rear and train the child for God. 

This ceremonial recognition of the child's 
actual membership in the visible Church 
should express the parent's humble, prayer- 



INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. 75 

ful hope of the child's membership in the 
Church invisible — the hope that from the 
very beginning of its life as a responsible 
creature it is renewed by the gracious 
power of the Holy Spirit — is truly regen- 
erate. This precious hope is not to be held 
cheaply and carelessly, but solemnly and 
watchfully and prayerfully. It is not to 
supersede, but to encourage and sweeten 
and vivify, the parental nurture and prayer. 
It should never be given up until the grow- 
ing or grown child shall show his impeni- 
tence by ungodly behavior. Such a hopeful 
presumption of infant regeneration, and con- 
sequent infant piety, mildly and quietly de- 
veloping without any period of conscious 
opposition to God from which there must 
be a turning or conversion, is needed for the 
satisfactory interpretation of our Church's 
rule, that " when children come to years of 
discretion, if they be free from scandal, and 
appear to be sober and steady, and to have 
sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord's 
body, they ought to be informed it is their 
duty and privilege to come to the Lord's 
Supper." 



?6 HOME WHISPERS. 

This is not to be interpreted as if only 
intelligence and morality were required as 
qualifications for full communion. Appli- 
cants are to be " examined as to their 
knowledge and piety." But the Directory 
does assume that there may be piety from 
very infancy, from a time back of which 
not only has the child no remembrance, 
but the parents have no knowledge or evi- 
dence of his state. Such a child should not 
be required to give evidence of conversion, 
but of present piety — present, actual Chris- 
tian character. He must credibly declare 
that he now believes on the Lord Jesus. 
It is not necessary that he should be able 
to remember a time when he did not believe 
on him. He should be humbly conscious 
that he now loves God and hates sin. It is 
by no means necessary nor desirable that 
he should be able to remember a time when 
he did not hate sin and love God. 

Our Church's rule for the admission of 
children born within the pale of the Church 
to the Lord's Supper is evidently framed 
upon the hopeful presumption that children 
of believers faithful to God's covenant and 



INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. JJ 

ordinances are regenerate. If, unhappily, 
any of them are not so, this is likely to be 
made evident by some " scandal," some con- 
duct other than " sober and steady," or at 
any rate by avowals or manifestations of 
feeling inconsistent with piety. Such evi- 
dence that the baptized child has not the 
spirit of a Christian after he has attained 
sufficient knowledge to understand the 
Christian doctrines and the import of the 
sacraments, forbids his admission to full 
communion. Until he shall be converted 
he may not be invited to the Lord's table. 
Infant membership in the Church does not 
develop into membership in full communion 
without credible evidence of true piety. 



XL 

TERMINATION OF INFANT CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP. 

WHEN and how does infant church- 
membership cease ? 
i. Whenever the child is admitted to 
membership in full communion on his own 
credible profession of his personal faith his 
infant church-membership, as such, ceases. 
That is to say, the imperfect membership 
into which he was born, to which some but 
not all church privileges and responsibilities 
belong, ceases whenever the person emerges 
from it into the complete membership which 
invests him with all church privileges and 
responsibilities. After this he is no longer 
a member of the Church in virtue of his 
relation to his parents, but in the same full 
sense in which his parents are members. 
He is no longer a member of the Church 
in his parents, but with his parents, their 
fellow-member. Father and son are now 

78 



TERMINATION OF MEMBERSHIP. ?g 

brothers, mother and daughter are now 
sisters, in Christ and in his Church, equal 
in rights and privileges and in direct re- 
sponsibility to the Church authorities. 

2. If the child does not become qualified 
for full communion, the question when and 
how his infant church-membership shall cease 
is not definitely answered by the Presbyterian 
standards. They do not even affirm that it 
shall cease at all. It may, however, be said 
that infant church-membership ceases vir- 
tually and practically when infancy ceases. 
When the child is no longer under the con- 
trol and instruction of his parents, he no 
longer has a title to church-membership in 
or through them. His individuality has 
reached its full development. He must 
henceforth give account of himself to the 
Church and to God. His responsibility for 
his own personal standing in the Church 
and before God is complete. In the sense 
in which the Westminster Confession uses 
the expression he is no longer the child of 
parents professing the true religion, for he 
is no longer a child. He no longer has 
parents who are responsible for the di- 



80 HOME WHISPERS. 

rection of his life. He has outgrown the 
filial relation in that sense of it. Parental 
responsibility and filial dependence have 
ceased. 

Shall we then say that the adult son or 
daughter of Christian parents, who was bap- 
tized in infancy, but who has never become 
prepared to profess a personal faith in Christ, 
is no longer a member of the visible Church ? 
This seems to be true. Shall there then be, 
at any determinate time, an official or for- 
mal proclamation or authoritative declara- 
tion to that effect ? It would certainly be 
difficult to tell precisely at what time this 
should be, and equally difficult to tell of 
what practical use it would be at any time. 

Some rigid ecclesiastical theorist might 
insist upon this in order to theoretical com- 
pleteness and consistency of church polity, 
but the practical pastor or elder, tenderly 
and watchfully caring for souls, would ask 
such a theorist what good it would do to 
achieve such theoretical accuracy. Who or 
what is harmed by the lack of it ? If adult 
persons who were children of believers in 
covenant with the Church, and who in in- 



TERMINATION OF MEMBERSHIP. 8 1 

fancy received the seal of the covenant, are 
still attentive to our preaching and hold 
themselves respectfully and kindly subject 
to our pastoral care, though not enjoying a 
hope in Christ, is the Church called upon 
to pass any act of excommunication upon 
them ? Nay, verily, she vindicates her own 
purity by not admitting them to full com- 
munion. It may be their own conscientious 
respect for her teaching which prevents 
them from assuming a privilege for which 
they feel themselves unqualified. Her 
motherly love and fidelity demand that 
she shall still prayerfully watch and wait 
for God's saving work in their souls so 
evidencing itself to their own hearts, and 
so visibly manifest in their lives, that they 
may properly be welcomed to the Lord's 
table and enrolled as members of his 
Church in full communion or (as we cus- 
tomarily express it more shortly) " commu- 
nicants." 

This is admirably expressed by Jonathan 
Edwards in his Reply to Williams, as follows : 

" They are not cast out because it is a 
matter held in suspense, whether they do 



82 HOME WHISPERS. 

cordially consent to the covenant or not, or 
whether their making no such profession 
does not arise from some other cause. And 
none are to be excommunicated without 
some positive evidence against them. And 
therefore they are left in the state they were 
in in their infancy, not admitted actually to 
partake of the Lord's Supper (which actual 
participation is a new positive privilege) for 
want of a profession, or some evidence be- 
yond what is merely negative, to make it 
visible that they do consent to the covenant. 
For it is reasonable to expect some appear- 
ance more than what is negative of a proper 
qualification, in order to being admitted to a 
privilege beyond what they have hitherto act- 
ually received. A negative charity may be 
sufficient for a negative privilege, such as free- 
dom from censure and punishment ; but some- 
thing more than a negative charity is need- 
ful to actual admission to a new privilege." 
3. Viewing the matter in another aspect, 
it may be said that certainly the membership 
of children in the visible Church must cease 
when it becomes evident by their wicked 
conduct that they are not members of the 



TERMINATION OF MEMBERSHIP. 83 

Church invisible or spiritual. When fla- 
grant vice or impenitent perverseness or dis- 
soluteness has wholly overborne all hopeful 
presumption of their having been spiritually 
regenerated, ought the Church to cast them 
out by an official act of excommunication ? 
To do so might not violate any theoretical 
principle ; the rigid fulfillment of a correct 
theory may seem to call for this ; but again 
the considerate pastor will ask, " Of what 
use would such an act be ? Who would be 
benefited or helped by it ? What interest 
of the Church or of Christ is harmed or 
imperiled by omitting it ? All the ends of 
church discipline in such cases are more se- 
curely gained by simply not admitting such 
unworthy children of the Church to the full 
communion for which they are visibly unfit. 
The difficulty at this end of the subject is 
only theoretical. There is no difficulty and 
no embarrassment in practice. The prac- 
tical evil is at the other end. We practically 
nullify important means of grace for the 
Lord's little ones by our failure to recog- 
nize infant regeneration and infant church- 
membership. 



XIL 

LITTLE COMMUNICANTS. 

WHEN shall Christian children be 
admitted to full communion in the 
Church ? 

i . At what age ? The Presbyterian Di- 
rectory (chap, ix.) says, "when they come 
to years of discretion. " It is judiciously 
added, "The years of discretion, in young 
Christians, cannot be precisely fixed. This 
must be left to the prudence of the elder- 
ship." The Church does not prescribe an 
age at which infant membership shall ma- 
ture into membership in full communion, 
as the State fixes twenty-one years for the 
maturity of citizenship. She makes it de- 
pend on mental and spiritual qualifications 
("knowledge and piety"), to be judged of 
by her ordained " officers. " Is there not, 
in fact, great timidity and reluctance in ad- 
mitting children to the communion, what- 

84 



LITTLE COMMUNICANTS. 85 

ever may be the evidences of piety which 
they give ? Virtually, do not many elders 
and ministers require that applicants for 
admission to communion shall be of such 
age and stature that one would not natu- 
rally call them children, but youths, young 
men or young women ? This is not war- 
ranted by the phrase " years of discretion," 
for this phrase is to be interpreted with ref- 
erence to the subject-matter to which it is 
applied. Years of discretion sufficient for 
holding office in the Church, for teaching 
a Sabbath-school class, for conducting a 
prayer-meeting, or even for taking audible 
part in it, and years of discretion sufficient 
for worthily partaking of the Lord's Supper, 
may not be the same. We shall have made 
some progress in our inquiry when we have 
decisively dropped out of our estimate all 
thought of twenty-one years or fourteen 
years, or any number of years whatever, 
as determining anything in this matter. 

2. What amount of knowledge shall be 
required ? " Sufficient knowledge to discern 
the Lord's body" says our Directory. How 
shall we understand this ? Must the young 



86 HOME WHISPERS. 

communicant be able to expound the prin- 
ciple on which Christ's expiation can be ac- 
cepted by the God of justice like ancient 
Anselm or modern Barnes or Hod^e ? Is 
it necessary that he should have read those 
venerable treatises, or be able to understand 
them if read to him ? By no means. No 
one holds that young communicants must 
be educated theologians. What must they 
know? How much must they understand? 
If a little child has heard in the old cradle- 
song, 

" 'Twas to save thee, child, from dying, 
Save my dear from burning flame, 
Bitter groans and endless crying, 
That thy blest Redeemer came;" 

if he understands that that blest Redeemer 
is the Son of God, the Lord of glory, who 
" became a child like him/' and, when grown 
to manhood, died for our sins ; if such a 
little child knows and confesses that he 
himself is a sinner, and with sincere sorrow 
for that fact asks the Lord Jesus to save 
him, and believes that he does save him ; if 
he knows that the bread and the cup mean 
the flesh and the blood of Jesus, and that 



LITTLE COMMUNICANTS. 87 

eating and drinking them signify taking and 
trusting him as our Saviour from sin, — has 
not that child " knowledge sufficient to dis- 
cern the Lord's body"? Does this phrase 
mean any more than that ? Whatever more 
may be desirable for the satisfaction of a 
maturing intellect, is it not simply that (which 
the little child can receive as well) on which 
the soul of the most mature and of the 
dying believer rests in secure hope ? 

3. What evidences of "piety" shall be 
demanded in the child communicant? Must 
the little one be free from faults of conduct 
or of temper? Why more than an adult 
communicant? Certainly, in both adults 
and children humble and penitent acknowl- 
edgment of faults, and prayerful effort to 
be rid of them, must be evidenced, or they 
cannot come worthily to this table. With 
such penitence and such trust who dares 
forbid any one ? But how shall the pastor 
and elders have evidence of these ? 

We are speaking of children who are 
" within the pale of the Church " — children 
of believing parents, children in Christian 
homes, children of the covenant. Cannot 



SS HOME WHISPERS. 

such parents, carefully and prayerfully bring- 
ing up those children " in the nurture of the 
Lord," give reliable testimony concerning 
their habits and behavior and the spirit 
therein manifested? Is not almost every 
such child in some Sunday-school class, 
and cannot the teacher learn the child's 
thoughts and feelings ? Has not the pas- 
tor access to all those classes and all those 
homes ? And has not he the Good Shep- 
herd's word to Simon ever sounding in his 
heart : " Feed my lambs " ? Is it really more 
difficult for the pastor and elders to ascer- 
tain whether a child is a penitent believer 
than w r hether an adult is ? And is not this 
all that needs to be ascertained- — that he is 
a penitent believer, not that he is a faultless 
person f 

4. Shall we, in all cases, wait for children 
to come to us with the request to be admit- 
ted to communion ? The most modest and 
the most tenderly penitent might not dare 
to do this. The disposition to be led, not to 
go forward boldly, sweetly becomes Chris- 
tian childhood. Our Directory assumes this 
where it says that such children as have 



LITTLE COMMUNICANTS. 89 

been described " ought to be informed it is 
their duty, and their privilege, to come to 
the Lord's Supper." Who should inform 
them ? Surely if parents and pastor and 
elders and Sunday school teachers are duly 
thoughtful and watchful, they will prayer- 
fully consult together, and will find the most 
suitable way in each case of leading the 
little disciple to a consciousness of his state 
and a modest recognition of his privilege. 
Ought not this, more than it is, to be a mat- 
ter of watchful consideration and of frank 
consultation on the part of all these official 
guardians and nourishers of infant piety ? 

These visible, tangible tokens, these em- 
blems which our eyes look upon and our 
hands handle and our lips touch, are more 
helpful, more needful, to the young than to 
the mature. Children are more dependent 
on sensible tokens than mature men for vivid 
impression and distinct remembrance. The 
child wants something which he can keep 
" to remember you by " when you go away 
from him. The Lord gave us these tokens 
for just that, "to remember him by." "This 
do in remembrance of me." 



90 HOME WHISPERS. 

The solemn self-examination in prepara- 
tion for the sacrament, the calling to re- 
membrance of faults and sins and asking 
forgiveness for them, the renewal of vows 
and the earnest prayer for help to keep 
them, the distinct mental beholding of 
Christ crucified, the tender thoughts of him 
in the impressive silence while the bread 
and the cup are passed through the congre- 
gation of communicants, the fixing and com- 
pleting of all these impressions by the rev- 
erent touch and taste of the elements, — 
all are helps to right endeavor to keep the 
steps onward in the narrow path ; and these 
helps are more needful to children than to 
men. 

I think that this will be read by some 
who have come first to the Lord's table 
later in life, but not as hoping that they had 
just then found the Saviour. You had fee- 
bly hoped in him for years, but did not have 
courage openly to confess him by this act 
of obedience to his dying request. You 
have lost much by this delay — much of en- 
joyment and much of strengthening. Do 
not you feel this to be so ? Then testify 






LITTLE COMMUNICANTS, 9 1 

thus, I pray you, to your pastor and breth- 
ren, and entreat them to look after the little 
disciples. 

When the church is doing so much to in- 
struct the children, so much to secure that 
they shall early know all the elementary 
truths of the gospel, shall she not expect 
the divine Spirit to make her teaching early 
effectual ? And shall she sternly or thought- 
lessly shut away from the table of Christian 
communion the little ones in whose hearts 
Christian faith and love are implanted ? In 
every Church which Christ blesses with true 
spiritual motherhood will there not be little 
communicants ? If anywhere on earth now, 
is it not at his own table that we may hear 
our Lord's gentle voice saying, " Suffer little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not"? 



XIII. 

THE BEGINNING OF LOVE. 

A LITTLE girl being asked when she 
began to love God, answered, " When 
I began to love mv mother." There is no 
reason to doubt that parents who love their 
children "in the Lord," and hold them be- 
lievingly in his faithful covenant, may obtain 
for them his renewing" grace so earlv that 
they will no more remember the beginning 
of their love to him than the beginning of 
their love to their mothers. Such children's 
love and obedience to parents will be " in 
the Lord." Their piety in its beginnings 
will be gentle, trustful, sweetly filial. It 
need not, therefore, in its maturity be less 
strong and steadfast and courageous. 

But there are mature persons, serious and 
thoughtful and conscientious, in w T hom love 
to God as a conscious experience has not 

92 



THE BEGINNING OF LOVE. 93 

yet begun — needs yet to begin. How shall 
it? 

I was once conversing with a parishioner, 
a married lady, whose perplexity respecting 
her love to God led me to ask her if she 
could tell me at what moment her love to 
her husband began. She promptly and 
beautifully answered, " I should say at the 
moment when first I became aware that he 
loved me." Doubtless many a happy wife 
can say that most heartily. Yet some, as 
happy as any, could not tell at what mo- 
ment nor on what day that knowledge came 
to them. It came with full assurance to 
their hearts, not by a sudden and spoken 
avowal. 

Not to all souls alike — not to all alike 
suddenly — does the assurance come that 
God loves them. But whenever it does 
come, when sinful unbelief so far breaks 
away from about the beclouded soul that 
it knows God's love to it, says with itself, 
" God so loved me that he gave his only- 
begotten Son for my redemption," — as soon 
as a soul thus knows itself loved of God, 
then it loves him. 



94 HOME WHISPERS. 

Practically, it is not wise nor profitable 
to try directly to make ourselves love God. 
No woman begins to love a man by resolv- 
ing, " I will love him." Our effort should 
be to understand and know God's love 
to us. 



XIV. 

THE HONOR DUE TO WEAKNESS. 

PETER'S exhortation to husbands so 
to dwell with their wives as to render 
honor to them "as the weaker vessel" (i 
Pet. 3 : 7) seems to me the most nobly chiv- 
alrous utterance which I ever heard or read. 
All that historic chivalry has worthily aimed 
at would find its consummation in such 
recognition of the honor that is due to 
weakness. 

What kind of weakness is that to which 
it is possible for right manly strength to 
give honor? Surely it is not any sort of 
weakness that is akin to worthlessness. 
The weakness of frivolity or of silliness 
cannot be honored. It may be our duty 
to bear with it, but I do not see how we can 
honor it. Perhaps it will help us if we 
notice a little more particularly the figu- 
rative form in which Peter gives us his 

95 



g6 HOME WHISPERS. 

thought : " the weaker vessel!' By a vessel 
we mean "a utensil proper for holding some- 
thing." " But in a great house there are 
not only vessels of gold and silver, but also 
of wood and of earth ; and some to honor 
and some to dishonor " (2 Tim. 2 : 20). 
Now, among the many vessels in a great 
house, which are they that are treated with 
the most honor, touched the most gently, 
handled the most carefully ? These ques- 
tions make you think of your glass and your 
porcelain. They make you think of vessels 
on your table through which the daylight 
shines freely, making them glitter like 
jewels. They make you think of costly 
vases which you commission to hold the 
choicest summer flowers, or vials which im- 
prison and keep for you the most delicious 
perfumes. Of all the vessels in your house, 
these upon which you bestow the most abun- 
dant honor are the same which could be 
most easily broken — which can least bear 
hard pressure or rough usage. Their weak- 
ness comes of their fineness, and their fine- 
ness makes them worth all the care which 
their weakness needs. Such weakness can 



THE HONOR DUE TO WEAKNESS. 97 

be honored; such weakness is honored. 
So is it that every true husband honors 
his wife. So is it that every true man 
honors every true woman. And this is 
Christian chivalry, the consummate flower 
of Christian civilization. 

But I do not think that we have yet 
reached the utmost meaning of Peter's 
beautiful exhortation. There has been a 
disposition in men to use that figure of 
speech as if it represented their wives to 
be their vessels — choice and goodly vessels 
indeed, " vessels unto honor," to adorn and 
beautify their homes as well as to furnish 
forth the highest and noblest utilities ; but 
theirs, they being the owners. A careful 
study of Peters figurative expression shows 
that he rather conceives of both the hus- 
band and wife as vessels, the wife the finer, 
and therefore the weaker or more frangible, 
of the two. His phrase would be more ex- 
actly rendered, " giving honor unto the fem- 
inine vessel as the weaker." The Christian 
man and woman dwelling together in happy 
and holy union, " as heirs together of the 
grace of life," are to conceive of themselves 

7 



98 HOME WHISPERS, 

as a pair of vessels "sanctified and meet for 
the Master s use, prepared unto every good 
work" (2 Tim. 2 : 21). And Peter bids us 
reverently recognize the natural difference 
between these two vessels. The coarser, 
harder, stronger should accept the rougher 
and harder uses, and the finer and frailer 
should be honored with the gentler and 
finer and sweeter uses. 

Can human thought carry the refinement 
of genuine courtesy higher than these in- 
spired writers have carried it ? Can woman 
make a greater mistake than to exchange 
this honor accorded to her weakness for 
all that can be won in bold and strenuous 
assertion of equality in powers and prerog- 
atives ? 



XV. 

POLISH AND SOLIDITY. 

IN comparing rightly-educated women to 
hewn corner-stones of a palace or a tem- 
ple (Ps. 144: 12), the Psalmist intimates the 
necessity of solidity in character as the basis 
of beauty in character. We need not be at 
all troubled by any apparent inconsisten- 
cy between this view of an Old-Testament 
writer and that of a New-Testament writer 
concerning the honor due to womanly weak- 
ness. The whole truth on such a subject 
cannot be expressed or shown by one figure 
of speech, any more than the whole form 
and beauty of an obelisk can be seen from 
one side. 

If we state the whole truth concerning 
man, as man was originally made and still 
exists in duality of sex, we must say that 
while in some obvious respects the " femi- 
nine vessel " of humanity is weaker than 



IOO HOME WHISPERS. 

the masculine, it is equally true that in some 
equally important respects the masculine is 
the weaker. It may also be said that those 
respects in which men are stronger than 
women are such as enable men (if they will) 
forcibly to control women ; and, unhappily 
and wickedly, men have too often used this 
power so to control women as to prevent 
them from improving advantageously and 
usefully their real and peculiar strength. 
Christianity — the teaching of Christ and his 
apostles — is taking away from rude mascu- 
line nature its coarse fondness for such bru- 
tal power, and is more and more setting 
feminine human nature at advantage for 
developing and utilizing its finer strength 
for the further refinement and the meet 
help of man. 

Quite in proportion as this is so it is 
becoming more and more evident that the 
true beauty of woman, both of body and of 
mind, is not only consistent with strength, 
but dependent on it. That idea of feminine 
grace and refinement which identified wo- 
man with sickly languor and lazy helpless- 
ness was a false and pernicious idea. The 



POLISH AND SOLIDITY. IOI 

women of the age are finding and show- 
ing that not by being merely dependent 
upon men, but by being helpers of men 
— helpers not merely of their pleasure, but 
of their work — do they fulfill their mission 
and attain their own highest beauty, the 
beauty of character. 

It has been a mistake of much female 
education that it aimed only to make wom- 
en polished, and not first to make them 
strong — to cultivate that which is super- 
ficial, forgetting that no surface can be 
permanently beautiful except the surface 
of that which is internally strong and solid. 
A block of soft sandstone cannot take and 
keep such a polish as a block of granite. 



XVI. 

THE LORD HEARKENING. 

DID it ever happen to you to hear your 
own little children talking together 
when they did not know that you were list- 
ening? And were they speaking of you, 
expressing, in child-like phrases, their love 
for you, reminding each other of your in- 
structions and directions, and manifesting 
a dutiful fear of failing to do all that you 
wished ? 

Did not the sweet tones arrest your 
passing footsteps ? And did not the sin- 
cere tribute fill your parental heart with 
unusual pleasure ? Did not your satisfied 
heart say fondly of those little ones, " They 
are mine ; they are my treasures, my jew- 
els " ? So saith the prophet Malachi, "Then 
they that feared the Lord spake often one 
to another; and the Lord hearkened and 
heard ; . . . and they shall be mine, saith 

102 



THE LORD HEARKENING. IO3 

the Lord, in the day when I make up my 
jewels ; and I will spare them, as a man 
spareth his own son that serveth him." 

Surely this is a most engaging represen- 
tation of Jehovah, bending thus from the 
infinite height of his greatness to such little 
and lowly creatures as we, and attentively 
listening to what we may be saying to each 
other of him. He " hearkens and hears" 
when " they that fear him speak one to 
another." Then he cares so much what 
we think of him, what we say of him ! This 
need not surprise us. What else should he 
care for from us if not for our dutiful and 
affectionate regard ? He is infinitely above 
all need of any material gifts or any per- 
sonal service which we could bestow. If 
he were hungry he would not tell us, for the 
world is his, and the fullness thereof. We 
do not look to our little children fpr the sup- 
ply of our wants. Yet those prattlers can 
give us, with their artless lips, from their 
loving hearts, what enriches us more than 
all gains of commerce. So also, his own 
word assures us, the great God, our Father 
in heaven, values the dutiful and affectionate 



I04 HOME WHISPERS. 

converse of his lowly children, which he 
%i hearkens to and hears," more than the " sil- 
ver and gold," " the cattle upon a thousand 
hills " or " all the fowls of the mountains " 
offered up in costly sacrifice. 

When you two Christian sisters met in 
the parlor of one of you, or stopped to- 
gether for a moment as you met on the 
pavement, if your hearts moved you to 
speak of him, his work, his love, his poor, 
his sick, whom you visit together; of your 
own little ones, for whom you have agreed 
to pray together, — whatever was said be- 
tween you on such themes from the fullness 
of your hearts, " the Lord hearkened and 
heard ;" and you are at liberty to judge of 
the pleasure it gave him by that which filled 
your own hearts when, at the door of your 
home, you heard the happy and loving voices 
of your little ones prattling of " mother." 

He listened to-day when you two Chris- 
tian brethren met in the counting-room of 
one of you, to know whether all your talk 
was of trade and of stocks and of invest- 
ments and of the vicissitudes of the cur- 
rency, or whether you had some words to 



THE LORD HEARKENING. 105 

exchange with each other about the prog- 
ress of his kingdom or his work of grace 
in your own hearts or in your children's, 
or about some precious truth of his holy 
word discussed in your pulpit last Sabbath 
or read from the Bible this morning. Amid 
the hum of voices on 'change he listened 
whether all the talk was of finance, or 
whether some of his servants, meeting 
there, improved a moment to consult to- 
gether on some theme of Christian enter- 
prise or Christian beneficence or Christian 
experience. Did he not listen, with even 
deeper interest, to the indications of the 
spirit pervading and ruling the business — 
whether greediness of filthy lucre, ambition 
for mere success, unscrupulous effort to 
make enterprises and adventures " pay," 
were its ruling elements, or whether some 
in the crowd were seriously yet cheerfully 
doing business for him, carefully ruling all 
its methods and processes by his law, and 
faithfully devoting to him all its gains, and 
prayerfully entrusting to him all its issues ? 
He " hearkened and heard." Yes, he heard 
all the silent thoughts as well as the spoken 



106 HOME WHISPERS. 

words. Be comforted, ye faithful ones. The 
world may not know you. The din and 
clamor of selfish trade and ungodly busi- 
ness fill the public ear, and too many are 
ready to believe, too many wish to believe, 
that truth and honesty and disinterestedness 
are nowhere to be found among men — that 
all trade is unscrupulous, all legislation cor- 
rupt, all statesmanship controlled by bribery. 
The pure, the steadfast, the uncorrupted are 
not clamorous or obtrusive. They may be 
unknown to the world. But " the Lord 
knoweth them that are his. ,, And he will 
not overlook them "in the day when he 
makes up his jewels," 



XVII. 

ELKANAH. 

IT is said that a great man is not so apt 
to be the son of a great man as of a 
great woman. It is commonly believed that 
the mother's influence is more decisive of 
the character of her sons than their fathers. 
I am not aware that this has been established 
by any careful collation and comparison of 
facts — not an easy thing to do — but I have 
no disposition to dispute it. Let the value 
and power of wise motherhood be extolled 
as much as you please ; neither I nor my 
children will dissent. But I have a suspi- 
cion that under cover of this gallant extol- 
ling of feminine influence there is some 
unmanly shirking of masculine responsi- 
bility. A boy needs a father as well as 
a mother. The wisest woman needs a 
man's help to bring up boys. A man's re- 

107 



108 HOME WHISPERS. 

sponsibility for the tone and spirit and sal- 
utary power of the home-life is not one 
whit less serious than that of his wife. 
There may be good and great men whose 
sons are failures because their mothers 
are weak and silly and selfish. But there 
are most excellent mothers whose sons go 
wrong by preferring their fathers' exam- 
ples to their mothers' precepts. There are 
men of decent and reputable lives, not 
Christians, who value highly the piety of 
their wives. They would be glad to see their 
children Christians, but leave their wives 
under the perplexing difficulty of showing 
why piety is more necessary for the mother 
than for the father. If such men's sons " go 
to the bad," will God hold their wives re- 
sponsible for it? 

We cannot value the example of Hannah 
too highly. But if Hannah were here to 
teach a Sunday-school class, I reckon she 
would talk to them of Elkanah. If she 
were in a mothers' meeting, and were 
asked to tell them about her own happy 
home-life, she would say, " I had such a 
good husband ! He was a God-fearing 



EL KAN AH, IO9 

man. He kept God's ordinances. He 
went up out of his city yearly to worship 
and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in 
Shiloh. Nothing could keep him from the 
house of God. Nothing could prevent him 
from attending to God's word and worship. 
And his reverent love to God made him so 
thoughtful and tender toward his family ! 
He always treated us as if he felt that God 
gave us to him and he wanted to keep us 
for God. I cannot tell you how specially 
sympathetic he was to me in my privation 
of maternal joy. (See i Sam. i : 7, 8.) 
Much as I longed to be a mother, I could 
not help admitting that my husband was 
' better to me than ten sons.' And then, 
when God had heard my prayer and had 
made me a mother, my husband helped me 
so in my devoting of our boy to God ! He 
knew how I had prayed and how I had 
vowed, and he joined me in giving back 
our child to God, who had given him to us. 
So long as the child needed me to nurse 
him at home Elkanah cheerfully let me 
stay, and made his journeys to Shiloh alone 
(1 Sam. 1 : 22), and when little Samuel was 



HO HOME WHISPERS. 

old enough to be safe away from me, and 
it was time for me to fulfill my vow, how my 
husband helped me ! How could I have 
done it if he had objected or sneered or 
looked cold and hard? Instead of that, 
when I spoke to him about taking the boy 
to Shiloh to be brought up for the ministry 
of God's house according to my vow, El- 
kanah said, ' Do what seemeth to thee good/ 
When I was worrying about my lonely child- 
lessness he had helped me to be submissive, 
and now, when my vow called me to make 
our home lonely again, he knew what it 
would cost me and he helped me again. He 
wanted me to do what was in my heart, be- 
cause he knew that it was God who had 
put it into my heart. Dear ladies, I wish 
that all your sons may be like my Samuel. 
God can make them so. But you have a 
right to expect your husbands to be joined 
with you in asking and seeking it. If God 
means to make your boys like my Samuel, 
I think he will first make your husbands like 
my thoughtful, considerate, godly Elkanah. ,, 



XVIII. 

THE CHILDLESS. 

THERE are affectionate wives and gen- 
erous husbands whose industry and 
good management have given them ample 
resources, whose faithful mutual love makes 
their house a true home, who long for the 
voices of children to gladden that home 
more than for any other possession or any 
other joy. 

There are homes in which there is only 
one child, and that child and its parents 
long unutterably that it may have sisters 
or brothers, but the sovereign Author of life 
does not see fit to grant the desired favor. 
" Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord : 
the fruit of the womb is his reward " (Ps. 
127:3). There is no department of our 
earthly life in which the Scriptures more 
distinctly affirm or more constantly recog- 

111 



112 HOME WHISPERS. 

nize the sovereignty of God than in this. 
Recall, for example, the scriptural account 
of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah and 
Elizabeth. The giving or withholding of 
children is always ascribed to the wise and 
sovereign ordering of God. The reverent 
recognition of this in every home is the 
best safeguard against all sinful keeping 
of homes empty and lonely. 

Childlessness in wedlock is always recog- 
nized in God's word as an affliction, but no 
more than blindness or any other infirmity 
may it be taken as a proof of sin. The 
word of God and his providence furnish 
sweet consolations to those who innocently 
suffer it. Some such persons have been 
providentially permitted to adopt orphans, 
taking up and taking home, in the name of 
the Lord and for him, desolate little ones 
whose father and mother have forsaken 
them or been taken away from them. Be- 
sides all the benevolent satisfaction of this, 
such children by adoption do frequently 
reward the parental love and care by be- 
coming as faithful and affectionate com- 
forters and nourishers of their parents in 



THE CHILDLESS, 113 

old age as if they had been theirs by birth. 
Others, out of pecuniary resources which it 
would have been a joy to expend upon their 
own offspring, find delight in helping the 
children of others to education fitting them 
for useful lives. 

On a Sabbath, after I had preached to my 
people on the duty of the Church to re- 
plenish her ministry both by giving her 
sons and by making provision for their 
suitable education, an unmarried woman, 
whose life had been one of laborious and 
patient industry, put into my hands a note 
enclosing a pecuniary contribution. These 
were her written words : " As I have neither 
husband nor sons who might serve God in 
the ministry, I take pleasure in giving what 
I can in money." Ah ! there are many 
godly maidens and many childless wives, 
who bear their own burdens of age and 
loneliness which dutiful children could do so 
much to lighten, — many such to whose skill- 
ful fingers and generous hearts missionaries 
and students for the ministry, as well as 
orphans and inmates of asylums, are in- 
debted for more than they know. These 



114 HOME WHISPERS. 

godly women often dwell in obscurity. Their 
names are not widely known on earth, but 
their ministry is a most beneficent one, and 
He for whose sake they render it will not 
fail to give them the promised reward. 
Even on earth they may win such love 
and grateful remembrance as were given 
to Dorcas, and Jehovah will give them " in 
his house and within his walls a place 
and a name better than of sons and of 
daughters " (Isa. 56 : 5). 

As I write these words I recall many a 
profitable hour spent in conversing with a 
venerable woman beside whose coffin I 
stood only a few days ago. A wise coun- 
selor, a sympathizing friend, a diligent help- 
er to her pastor, nearly all the homes and 
hearts in her village were familiar with her 
womanly Christian ministration. Its most 
elegant, its most lowly, even its most squalid, 
homes had been brightened by her presence. 
On her coffin lay a floral anchor fastened 
with a white ribbon bearing the inscription, 
" Her children arise up and call her blessed.'' 
No children were hers by birth. She was 
a maiden. But the children reared in her 



THE CHILDLESS. 115 

church's Sabbath-school for more than a 
half century love to be called " her chil- 
dren/' and there are among them gray- 
haired men who remember no Sabbath- 
school instruction earlier than that which 
they received standing erect by her side 
when they were only tall enough to lay 
their small hands on her knee. Do not 
some who read this recall with loving grat- 
itude the great, wise motherliness of some 
maidens presiding over or teaching in sem- 
inaries, living such lives as Mary Lyon's 
and Fidelia Fiske's, and whom hundreds 
of women, in hundreds of happy homes, 
teach their children to call blessed ? 



XIX. 

BRING THE CHILDREN. 

IN recent discussions concerning the Sab- 
bath-school one prominent question is, 
u How can we secure the attendance of 
Sabbath-school children upon the services 
of the sanctuary, upon the preaching of the 
gospel ?" 

So far as this question relates to the chil- 
dren of Christian parents, I would say to 
such parents, This is not a question for the 
Sabbath-school teachers, but for you ; and 
the true answer to it is, simply, Bring them. 

Whence comes the notion that parental 
authority is out of place here ? Is there 
anything else affecting seriously the train- 
ing and education of your children in re- 
spect to which you leave them wholly to 
their own choice ? Do you not decide au- 
thoritatively when they shall attend school 
and what school they shall attend ? And 

1J6 



BRING THE CHILDREN. WJ 

do you not require them to go regularly 
and punctually, whether they wish to go or 
not ? Can you safely let them live through 
the years in which habits are formed and 
not bring your parental authority to bear 
(if need be) upon the question whether they 
shall form the habit of going regularly to 
the house of God on the Sabbath ? 

The Lord said of Abraham, "I know him, 
that he will command his children and his 
household after him, and they shall keep the 
way of the Lord." This evidently, was a 
high divine commendation of Abraham. It 
is for just such holy use that God has given 
authority to parents. 

Yet I am far from believing that any 
harsh or stern use of parental authority is 
needed. It is another good sio-n of our 
times that ministers are studying more 
than ever to make the pulpit attractive to 
the young. Many are doing this with good 
success. Particularly, we are learning that 
it is not necessary to separate children 
from adults in our ministrations. There 
are, now-a-days, some pastors who come 
weekly among their flocks, bringing their 



Il8 HOME WHISPERS. 

armfuls of sheaves with which to feed them, 
who always cull out some of the finest and 
fullest ears with which to feed the lambs, 
" rubbing them in their hands " most win- 
ningly and dropping the bright kernels 
within their reach. Some of these, after 
a little, conclude to leave all the straw at 
home, and the chaff too, bringing only the 
clean winnowed grain, all in such shape that 
the lambs can eat of it. Very noticeable is 
it that they find the sheep also to feed and 
fatten all the better. 

In utmost seriousness and earnestness 
would I press the thought that this bring- 
ing of children and adults together into a 
more real and hearty and genial compan- 
ionship in biblical study, and in hearing the 
gospel, and in all Christian life, is one of 
the most important efforts that the Church 
now has in hand. I know nothing of ordi- 
nances, nothing of privileges in the Church 
of Christ, to which I do not understand 
Christ to say, " Bring the children" " Suffer 
the little children to come, and forbid them 
not." 



XX. 

"MARY!"-"RABBONI." 

THESE were the first words exchanged 
between the risen Saviour and any 
other person. His first word is that sweet 
name which was borne by his virgin mother 
and by a number of his female disciples. 
No other name of woman would be pro- 
nounced so often in his hearing during all 
his childhood as that by Joseph in the Naz- 
areth home. 

If we did not know, and were asked to 
guess, to which of the women who loved 
him he would first show himself alive after 
his resurrection, should we not say, " To his 
mother " ? It was not so, however. Where 
was that Mary, " blessed among women"? 
Why was not she to whom he was given as 
an infant the first to greet him rising from 
the dead ? Had that sword which pierced 
through her soul when she saw him hanging 

119 



120 HOME WHISPERS. 

on the cross wounded her so deeply that 
physical powers were quite prostrated ? 
We vainly conjecture. Surely He who 
with his expiring breath had committed 
his mother to his beloved disciple in words 
of such tenderness w r as not forgetful nor 
unfeeling toward her when he came back 
from the sepulchre. Yet it is instructive 
that she has no prominence in the resur- 
rection-scene nor in all that followed — no 
distinction at all like that which the Romish 
superstition assigns her. Another Mary has 
the precedence and pre-eminence among the 
witnesses of the resurrection — Mary Mag- 
dalene. She is conspicuous for her thank- 
ful love to Jesus, and for her affecting reason 
for it — his delivering her from a sevenfold 
demoniacal possession. It has been wrong- 
ly assumed that she had been eminent for 
wickedness, and so her name has been taken 
to indicate the deepest guilt and shame of 
womanhood. There is no evidence of this. 
The demons may have " possessed " her in 
that strange way of bodily subjection to 
their malignant power which Jesus so often 
relieved, without having gained any unusual 



"MAR Y! "—"RABBONL" 1 2 1 

ascendency over her mind and will. She 
was a great sufferer, and no doubt was a sin- 
ner, thankfully recognizing Jesus as her Sa- 
viour from sin. But we have no evidence that 
she had been an immoral or vicious woman. 

She loved her Lord with a most fervent 
and most reverent affection. How strongly 
is this shown by her pained exclamation 
when she found the sepulchre empty ! — 
" They have taken away my Lord, and I 
know not where they have laid him ;" and 
again, to him, " supposing him to be the 
gardener :" " Sir, if thou have borne him 
hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, 
and I will take him away." She had not 
recognized her Lord when he asked her why 
she wept without calling her by name, but 
when he said "Mary/" it fell on her ear " like 
the deep tones of some rich instrument." 

It was the same mighty voice which 
hushed the fury of the tempest and which 
woke the dead Lazarus. It was the same 
gentle voice which had soothed so many 
hearts with "Thy sins be forgiven thee." 
She knew it in its deep power and in its 
infinite sweetness. She heard and felt both 



122 HOME WHISPERS, 

in its uttering of her own name, "Mary!" 
Xo added words were needed to convey to 
her all of comfort, of assurance, of mani- 
festation of her risen Lord which her 
crushed heart needed. And only one 
word was needed to convey fully to him 
all her heart's trustful, satisfied, thankful, 
obedient response, " Rabboxi !" — " My Mas- 
ter !" The word by which John renders the 
Syriac into Greek is " master," in the sense 
of " teacher." It is the term which corre- 
sponds with " disciple." The fullest, the 
most teachable, the most loving and obe- 
dient, discipleship is what Mary professes 
and her Lord accepts. 

Is that the word which your heart whis- 
pers to him now ? which your lips would 
utter if he stood now before you as Mary 
saw him in the garden ? " RabboniP — H My 
Teacher P Does your heart say that, mean- 
ing everything which it implies ? Then you 
need not doubt that he writes your name 
on the same roll with all his Marys, and 
you shall, by and by, hear him speak it in a 
voice of love that will gladden you more 
than all the songs of the seraphim. 



XXL 

THE WITNESSING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

WHAT is that co-witnessing of the 
Spirit with our own spirit, " that we 
are children of God," of which Paul speaks 
(Rom. 8: 15)? 

To answer this question correctly we 
must compare this passage with others 
which treat of the Holy Spirit's working 
in his people. If it is true that we are "led 
by the Spirit of God " — that we are tracta- 
ble to his evident impulses, easily governed 
by those convictions of duty which he works 
in our minds, attentive to those suggestions 
of duty which he awakens, faithful and stu- 
dious in those inquiries after our duty to 
which he prompts ; if also the temper of our 
minds is affected as his word teaches us to 
expect him to affect it ; if the word of God 
and his ordinances and means of grace are 
producing those good spiritual effects of 

123 



124 HOME WHISPERS. 

which we know from the Bible that he only 
makes them efficacious; if "the fruit of the 
Spirit," which is " love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- 
ness, temperance," be produced in our life, 
then the Holy Spirit, who is clearly re- 
vealed as the Author of all these, may 
most properly be said to be testifying or 
witnessing to our adoption. He is giv- 
ing us the clearest and best evidence 
of it. 

All these effects are wrought upon our- 
selves. They are effects of which we are 
conscious. They are states or exercises of 
our own minds. Thus the Spirit witnesses 
with our spirit. It is a co-witnessing. The 
action of the Holy Spirit upon our minds, 
and the responsive action of our minds in 
consequence, concur in this testimony. They 
are correlative and complementary to each 
other. Both are required to complete the 
testimony. 

To regard anything short of this as the 
"witness of the Spirit" is delusive. A con- 
fidence that one is saved apart from any 
actual manifestation of real Christian char- 



THE WITNESSING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 25 

acter is not the Holy Spirit's witnessing. 
It is our own vain assumption. 

Yet there is more in this " witnessing of 
the Spirit " than the logical inference of our 
being children of God deduced from our 
possessing the proper character of his chil- 
dren. In his lovely office of Comforter the 
Holy Spirit directly enables us to feel these 
proofs of our adoption. He diffuses a holy 
joy through our souls on account of them. 
Thus he strengthens our hope and gives us 
" the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry 
Abba, Father." 



XXII. 

OBEY THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

THERE are persons who are already 
so affected by the Holy Spirit's influ- 
ences that they are inquiring with earnest 
solicitude what they must do to be saved. 
They are made sensible that they are guilty 
and ruined. The evil of their doings and 
of their hearts is so disclosed to them that 
they are alarmed and ashamed and dis- 
tressed. Dear friend, you are the subject 
of the Holy Spirit's strivings. He is calling 
you to repentance. He is moving upon 
your mind with a saving influence. Will 
you yield yourself up to it ? Will you obey 
him ? Have you duly considered that you 
stand at the door which opens into the nar- 
row way that leadeth unto life, and that it 
is the hand of God the Holy Spirit that 
draws you toward that door — that it is he 
whose help and whose guidance you must 

126 



OBEY THE HOLY SPIRIT* \2*J 

have at every step of that narrow way if 
you are truly to pursue it to its happy and 
glorious end ? 

Do you indeed want his help and his 
guidance? Do you wish him to take this 
friendly office upon him ? Then obey him. 
Follow his present call. Yield to his present 
promptings. Withdraw not your hand ; let 
him lead you through that door. But per- 
haps you do not see it. It is not clear to 
your view that you do stand at so critical a 
point. Still obey the Spirit ; obey God. Do 
what his word directs you to do. Do what 
your own judgment, enlightened by Script- 
ure, decides to be right. Do what, with un- 
wonted seriousness, you feel that you ought 
to do. 

Is it to pray ? Have you refused or neg- 
lected until now to bow the knee even in 
secret to the great God ? Is it clear to your 
mind that he demands that homage, and that 
you need help which none but he can give ? 
and does an unseen and unaccountable in- 
fluence urge you to fall down before him ? 
Obey, or consent that the friendly Spirit 
shall leave you. 



128 HOME WHISPERS, 

Is it to make confession of some wrong 
which you have done to a fellow-creature — 
some act of disobedience to a parent, some 
word of unkindness to a brother or sister 
or schoolmate or companion, some dishon- 
esty in business, some rudeness or deceit in 
social life — something, anything, which is not 
according to the Golden Rule, " Do unto 
others as ye would have them do to you "? 
And does that wrong thing press on your 
conscience, and does the duty of confession 
press you, and does the pride of your heart 
plead and seek to evade the matter and re- 
fuse to yield ? Choose whether you will 
obey the Spirit, and thus invite his contin- 
uance with you, or whether you will resist, 
and thus distinctly say, " Depart from me ; 
I desire not the knowledge of thy ways." 
The question of your salvation may turn 
upon some such common, practical thing. 
The great question is, whether you will 
obey the Spirit of God; and his manner 
is often to try that question on some such 
plain matter of practical duty. 

Or is the question with you whether you 
will give up some favorite pleasure or some 



OBEY THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 29 

object of strong desire, or whether, by one 
comprehensive act of consecration, you will 
renounce the world and give yourself up to 
God ? And does desire strongly plead, and 
does inclination strongly resist conscience, 
and is the struggle hard between your love 
of the world and your sense of duty? On 
which side of that struggle, think you, is the 
Holy Spirit enlisted ? Will you obey him ? 

Yes, it is the Spirit who urges you to 
that which you feel to be right ; and when 
you begin to obey him you will have begun 
to walk in the way of life, for he will lead 
you in no other ; and you will have begun 
a life in which yet larger measures of his 
saving influence will be given. 

Blessed are they who are "led by the 
Spirit of God ;" " they are the children of 
God." Do any truly want that gracious 
adoption ? do any wish to be henceforth 
God's children ? Surely they will not resist 
his Spirit. They, knowing in themselves 
how he is now dealing with them, will yield 
to his power, will obey his voice, will accept 
his seal upon them. " Now is the accepted 
time ; behold, now is the day of salvation." 
9 



XXIII. 

FILIAL TRUST. 

" AT that day ye shall ask in my name: and 
ii I say not unto you that I will pray the 
Father for you, for the Father himself loveth 
you, because ye have loved me, and have 
believed that I came out from God" (John 
1 6 : 26, 27). 

I was once requested to go into the 
chamber of one who lay very sick, and to 
pray with her. She was dear to my family, 
to my people and to me. I felt sure that 
she was dearer to the Lord. She was a wo- 
man in whom the heart of her husband had 
safely trusted; whose children (although hers 
not by birth, but by her marriage to their 
father) " arose up and called her blessed ;" 
to whom many poor and many needing in- 
struction and comfort were wont to look 
trustfully. How we should miss her if she 
should go away and we see her no more ! 

130 



FILIAL TRUST. 131 

How we do miss her now from our places 
of Christian concourse and from her cus- 
tomary walks of Christian usefulness ! Her 
husband knelt with me beside the bed 
whereon the sick one lay. Gently, noise- 
lessly, we had come thither, as her extreme 
weakness demanded. I was touched by the 
pale sadness on that husband's calm face, 
through which there shone a light of tran- 
quil satisfaction and assurance as the setting 
sun's radiance mildly streams through the 
cloud that hides him. Was I to lead him in 
prayer there ? Was I to utter his petition 
for her? Even so do intelligent and de- 
vout believers in the one only Mediator still 
scripturally honor Christian brotherhood 
and the pastoral relation. 

But need I offer any petition, any en- 
treaty, to Him " who loved us and gave 
himself for us"? Would I entreat this 
pale husband not to harm this wife of his 
tender and grateful love? As little, far 
less, need I supplicate Him who has bought 
her with his blood and called her into the 
kingdom of his grace and renewed her by 
his Spirit, not to let any evil thing befall her. 



132 HOME WHISPERS. 

My voice is hushed, my heart is quiet ; I 
feel His presence who took Peter's wife's 
mother by the hand, and to whom Martha 
sobbed, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my 
brother had not died." He is here. Our 
sister shall not die, for whosoever "liveth 
and believeth in him shall never die." He 
may take her soon to be " with him, where 
he is " — to rest and to dwell in the mansion 
prepared for her. Shall I entreat him not 
to do this ? Does kindness to her or trust 
in him allow me to pray thus ? Can even 
her husband put his unselfish heart into that 
petition if I do utter it? What have we to 
ask for with strong entreaty, being con- 
sciously under Jesus' eye, assured that his 
everlasting arm is underneath her? Our 
prayer is not, cannot be, entreaty. It is 
trustful reference to his wise, holy, gracious 
will: "Lord, she whom thou lovest is sick." 
That is enough. We leave her thus, and 
our hearts rest in assurance of this wise 
and faithful love. 

More than a score of years ago I walked 
back and forth in our family-room bearing 
in my arms our infant of one year, pale and 



FILIAL TRUST. 1 33 

thin, swiftly growing paler and thinner, with 
sharp and rapid disease. Never have I 
seen a lovelier face, never have I looked 
into deeper eyes, never have my hands 
handled a fairer form. Never has my heart 
dilated with a sweeter joy than that with 
which his bright joyous smile daily filled 
it. Must I part with him so soon ? Would 
the Lord take him away so quickly ? Could 
we spare him ? Should I lay the babe in 
tenderer arms and go away to some deep 
solitude, where, out of all human hearing, 
I could pour out my soul unto God " with 
strong crying and tears " ? Could I win that 
sweet life by mighty Israel-like wrestling 
with the Angel of the Covenant ? I felt no 
impulse to such prayer. I asked myself, 
" Can I refuse to this dear lamb the infinite 
privilege of being gathered now into the 
bosom of the Good Shepherd — gathered 
into eternal safety, without any experience 
of the evil or exposure to the perils that 
are in this world ? Shall I set our need of 
him in opposition to Christ's care for him ?" 
I could not entreat for my boy's continuance 
in our home; I could not trust my own heart. 



134 HOME WHISPERS. 

It seemed better to pray, " Lord, thou know- 
est what is best. Let that be done/' 

Tell me, ye who know the power of 
prayer, did I fail to use it? Did I miss 
my privilege ? 

Is it because I was not " strong in faith " 
that I have not now the helping companion- 
ship of the young, strong man that my boy 
would now be ? Or may I thankfully take 
the peace and the sweetness with which all 
our memories of that one year are suffused, 
and all the gentle and hallowed influence 
which from that year has flowed down our 
life, as a most fatherly answer to submissive 
prayer? Is it our Christian privilege to 
feel so assured that "the Father himself 
loveth us " that in such moments we may 
leave everything to him, not needing to ask 
anything of him? Does our great Advo- 
cate intimate in that text that we may rest 
in such faith in him that we shall not always 
need to think of him as interceding for us ? 
At least, does he not teach us that we are 
never to regard the Father as needing to 
be persuaded by his prayer for us — much 
less by our prayers? May Christian prayer 



FILIAL TRUST. 135 

be not only a power for obtaining from God 
"such things as we have need of/' but also 
a power whereby we ourselves may be so 
lodged in the confidence of God that, " look- 
ing unto " him and assured that he looketh 
on us, we feel (sometimes) no need and no 
disposition to ask anything — just resting on 
God and " waiting patiently " for him ? 



XXIV. 

FROM BETHEL TO PENIEL. 

IT sometimes happens that a youth has 
grown up from infancy in a Christian 
home, under Christian instruction and gov- 
ernment and with habits of visible conform- 
ity to Christian rules, but without a spiritual 
Christian experience. He has never re- 
volted against parental authority. He has 
never gone among the sons of Belial. He 
has never forsaken the sanctuary, nor shown 
irreverence toward the family altar or the 
Sabbath or the Bible. He is no fornicator 
or profane person. He is not a blasphemer 
nor a scoffer nor a drunkard. He has not 
denied, perhaps has not questioned, the truth 
of what parents and teachers and pastors 
have taught him. He believes in God the 
Maker of heaven and earth, and would 
affirm that God is everywhere. 

Yet never, in any spot where he has ever 

136 



FROM BETHEL TO PENIEL. 1 37 

been, has he distinctly and vividly felt God's 
presence as a reality to him — never at any 
moment has it seemed to him, " Now God is 
immediately dealing with me, speaking to 
me personally, in his commands, his calls, 
the offer of his gospel. " Never has he 
been made to feel, " Now, this hour, this 
instant, God is demanding of me that I an- 
swer to his call, that I deal personally, di- 
rectly, frankly with him, that now I tell him 
what I will do about this, whether I will 
now hearken to his commandment — whether, 
from now, I will have him for my God, his 
crucified Son for my Saviour and my 
Lord." 

Such a youth seems to me much like Ja- 
cob when he lay down a little way from Luz 
in the open field, with a stone for his pillow. 
Not blameless indeed has Jacob's life been ; 
what young man's has been, even the most 
decent and dutiful ? Jacob remembers very 
selfish and unbrotherly behavior of which 
he has been guilty. He has in his heart 
memories that are harder than the stone on 
which his head lies. There are things for 
which he blames himself and despises him- 



I38 HOME WHISPERS. 

self, yet he has never purposed in his heart 
to forsake the God of his fathers. Will 
God now manifest himself to the soul of 
the wanderer ? Yes, the set time has come. 
Sovereignly, graciously, wonderfully, God 
makes Jacob feel that he, the God of Abra- 
ham and the God of Isaac, is willing to be 
his God and the God of the numerous off- 
spring of whom he will make him father. 

The way in which God did this for Jacob 
is not the important matter — the dream, the 
ladder, the angels. The fact that he did it 
is the important thing. He may do it as 
effectually to-day to you with no visible 
ladder and no audible rustle of angelic 
robes and wings. The decisive hour may 
be signaled to you, alone in your chamber, 
by the sudden sight of your dead mother's 
picture, or of the old rocking-chair in which 
you have been hushed to sleep on her 
bosom, or of the old Bible from which she 
read to you. Do you not still hear her 
sweet voice even as it told you the story 
of Jesus ? Do you not feel her hand even 
as yours touched it while she taught you 
"Our Father " and "Now I lay me down 



FROM BETHEL TO PENIEL. 1 39 

to sleep"? When she who has gone to 
God is so with you, do you not know that 
her God is not far off? Away from your 
home, among strangers, homesick and lone- 
ly, hiding your heartache from unsympathiz- 
ing companions, and trying to hide it from 
yourself by busy activity, the hour of God's 
mercy may come to you in vivid memory 
of past instruction and penitent regret for 
too long neglect of it. 

In the sanctuary such a gracious hour 
may come. Seated among the worshipers, 
attentive to the word, you may find that 
word just suited to you — you may feel it to 
be God's special voice to you : " My son, 
know thou the God of thy fathers ;" " I am 
thy father's God ; give me thy heart." 

Dear youth, this is your Bethel. To you 
God is here, as you never before have found 
him. Answer as Jacob answered : " Hence- 
forth Jehovah shall be my God," and you 
will never forget that Bethel. You will 
always love to come back to it — often in 
thoughts, sometimes, if possible, in bodily 
visitation. 

But Jacob could not stay at his Bethel, 



HO HOME WHISPER S. 

any more than Peter on the Mount of 
Transfiguration. The Old-Testament nar- 
rative soon takes Jacob far away " into the 
land of the people of the East." There 
for a score of years he toils and thrives in 
the service of Laban. He shows great tact 
and energy, and wins the ordinary rewards 
of diligence in business — wins, upon the 
whole, the respect of Laban. In due time 
he sets his face toward Canaan, the land 
promised to his posterity. Now he jour- 
neys not alone "with his staff," but having 
become " two bands." With wives and 
children, a numerous household, with flocks 
and herds and servants, a notable retinue, 
he is marching westward. A crisis comes 
in that progress. The Edomite chief, his 
formidable brother Esau, is reported coming 
against him with four hundred men. Is he 
coming in unappeased anger to avenge the 
fraud and supplanting of so long ago ? Ja- 
cob omits no careful provision, neglects no 
likely means of softening or of escaping his 
brother's rage. But, above all his skillful 
arrangements and provisions, his reliance is 
upon prayer. He will go alone to God and 



FROM BETHEL TO PENIEL. I41 

earnestly seek his interposition. Sending 
all the objects of his care " over the brook," 
" Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled 
a man with him until the breaking of the 
day/ 1 

Jacob seems not to have been surprised by 
this mystical encounter. He seems rather 
to have sought it. It does not come on him 
as a surprise, like the earlier vision at Bethel. 
Between Bethel and Peniel, in those twenty 
years in the East, Jacob has had a great 
deal of experience. The narrative sketches 
with exceeding brevity even its outward and 
secular incidents. Few and slight are the 
notes which hint to us of his spiritual ex- 
periences, yet they are sufficient to show 
that he was happily conscious, and Laban 
frankly admitted, that " the God of his father, 
the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac 
was with him " (Gen. 30 : 27 ; 31 : 42). 

A busy, diligent, thrifty life is not incon- 
sistent with growing and deepening godli- 
ness. 

Now, in this great need and crisis Jacob 
avails himself of his acquaintance with God, 
and God reveals himself more nearly and 



142 HOME WHISPERS. 

more impressively than before. The earlier 
experience made Jacob feel that he was in 
God's house ; at the ford of Jabbok he felt 
that he had " seen God face to face." Per- 
petually, therefore, in the holy geography 
of those lands those memorable places 
bear in Hebrew the names God's House 
and God's Face. 

Are there not busy and diligent Chris- 
tians now with us who have had their 
Bethel, but do not know that they may 
have their Peniel? 

Surely you have done well to go often to 
your Bethel, to worship with thanksgiving 
the God who there made himself known to 
you as your God. But now, at this difficult 
Jabbok which you have to cross, in presence 
of this great trial or peril which you have 
to face, you need not look far up the ladder 
which angels are climbing nor listen for the 
voice that shall come down from far above. 
Lo ! the Angel is here, the Man with whom 
you may wrestle, to whose neck you may 
cling with the grasp that will not let go 
without the blessing. 

Speak not of "the power of prayer;" 'tis 



FROM BETHEL TO PENIEL. 1 43 

the confessed and clinging weakness that 
God cannot resist. Not the soul struggling 
with him, but the soul hanging on him in 
submissive dependence prevails. " When 
I am weak, then am I strong ;" " His 
strength is made perfect in weakness." 

" Come, O thou traveler unknown, 
Whom still I hold, but cannot see ; 
My company before is gone, 

And I am left alone with thee ; 
With thee all night I mean to stay, 
And wrestle till the break of day. 

" I need not tell thee who I am ; 

My sin and misery declare ; 
Thyself hast called me by my name ; 

Look on thy hands, and read it there; 
But who, I ask thee, who art thou ? 
Tell me thy name, and tell me now. 

" In vain thou strugglest to get free ; 

I never will unloose my hold ; 
Art thou the Man that died for me ? 

The secret of thy love unfold : 
Wrestling, I will not let thee go 
Till I thy name, thy nature, know. 

" Wilt thou not yet to me reveal 
Thy new, unutterable name? 
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell ; 
To know it now resolved I am : 
Wrestling, I will not let thee go 
Till I thy name, thy nature, know. 



144 HOME WHISPERS. 

" What though my shrinking flesh complain, 
And murmur to contend so long : 
I rise superior to my pain ; 

When I am weak, then am I strong; 
And when my all of strength shall fail, 
I shall with the God-man prevail." 



XXV. 

SYMPATHY AND PRAYER. 

" \ PASTOR in distress for his people, 
Xl his work and himself, asks your 
prayers and those of your people." 

This comes to us by mail. It is without 
date and without signature, and the post- 
mark is illegible. I have no conjecture 
whence or from whom it comes. It is like 
a cry coming in darkness over the water or 
through the forest or across the lonely prai- 
rie — a human voice uttering a cry of dis- 
tress, but giving no information as to what 
kind of distress it is. It is an articulate 
voice, not calling for human help, but ask- 
ing us to pray God to grant his help. 

Our response may suitably be in the 
words of the twentieth Psalm : " The Lord 
hear thee in the day of trouble ; the name 
of the God of Jacob defend thee ; send thee 
help from the sanctuary, and strengthen 

10 145 



I46 HOME WHISPERS. 

thee out of Zion ; remember all thy offer- 
ings, and accept thy burnt- sacrifices ; grant 
thee according to thine own heart, and fulfill 
all thy counsel." 

Yet it is not amiss for us to consider and 
try to conjecture what the distress may be 
in which we are thus plaintively entreated 
to give our prayerful sympathy. 

" A pastor in distress for his people." Is 
the hand of God upon them, inflicting loss 
or bereavement ? Is it famine or pestilence 
or terrible losses by fire or flood under 
which the faces of that people gather black- 
ness and the heart of their pastor aches 
in sympathetic sorrow? No, his distress 
is "for his work'' — for his people, then (we 
may fairly infer), because his work does not 
prosper among them. His work as a pastor 
he doubtless means ; the work for the sake 
of which he has been made a pastor and his 
people sustain him ; the work of caring for 
their souls, of applying the gospel of God 
to their needs, of reclaiming them from sin, 
of leading them to Christ, of nurturing them 
in the faith, of helping them to Christian 
usefulness and Christian enjoyment, and 



SYMPATHY AND PRAYER. 1 47 

finally to heaven. His distress for this work 
surely can only be because he does not see 
it advancing prosperously. What hinders ? 
Are there bitter dissensions among the peo- 
ple, alienations, strifes, mutual coldness and 
disdain ? Have those who should be helpers 
of his ministry forsaken him, like Demas 
" having loved this present world " ? Have 
" grievous wolves come in, not sparing the 
flock"? Have false teachers and seducers 
drawn away into error and corruption num- 
bers of the souls he has been set to watch 
over ? Any of these would be sufficient to 
justify his appeal and to account for his 
sorrow. But his message reaches a still 
deeper pathos when it adds that his distress 
is for " himself.'' A deep searching of heart 
is there. He has been meditating on his 
own ministry among that people, and his 
clear perception of its defectiveness is the 
iron which enters into his soul most deeply. 
He questions himself painfully : " Am I at 
fault for the want of success of my preach- 
ing and of all my ministry ? Alas ! in many 
ways I have come short most wretchedly. 
I ought to have been more studious, so as 



148 HOME WHISPERS, 

to have put into my sermons more thought 
in more clear, more impressive, more per- 
suasive utterance. I ought to have been 
more watchful against the various evil in- 
fluences to which one and another of my 
people are exposed. I ought to have been 
more attentive socially to some who for 
lack of that perhaps are drifting away 
from my influence. I ought to have been 
more prompt and faithful and courageous 
in admonishing some whom I have seen 
yielding to temptation. Perhaps at the 
very beginning of their yielding my 
faithful remonstrance would have saved 
them." 

This sense of shortcoming and of delin- 
quency may amount even to the fear that 
he himself has not a true experience of the 
grace of God, and may at last be " a cast- 
away." Even then, most likely, his worst 
fear is for his people — his keenest pain from 
the thought that they should suffer such a 
calamity as to be under the care of one so 
unworthy. Like David of old when he saw 
the angel with his sword drawn over Jeru- 
salem, he exclaims, " Let thy hand be upon 






SYMPATHY AND PRAYER. 1 49 

me, I pray thee, but not on thy people, that 
they should be destroyed/' 

He asks us to pray for him ; and indeed 
we will, for the Scripture saith, " Confess 
your faults one to another, and pray one 
for another, that ye may be healed. " Will- 
ingly would we reciprocate our brothers 
confession of faults and his request for 
prayer if we knew him and his people. 
We would also bid him read and take to 
heart Psalm 42 : " Why art thou cast down, 
O my soul ? and why art thou disquieted 
within me ? hope thou in God ; for I shall 
yet praise Him who is the health of my 
countenance. " Do not let humility degen- 
erate into despondency. Do not imagine 
that all your reasons for shame and peni- 
tence are reasons for despair. "The Lord 
is nigh unto them that are of a broken 
heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite 
spirit. ,, 



XXVI. 

PRAYER OF THE UNCONVERTED. 

MAY one who has not been born again 
pray ? Does such an one displease 
God and add to his own guilt by praying? 
Is it right to advise an anxious sinner to 
pray ? These are practical questions of no 
small importance. Let us seek the true an- 
swer to them. The Bible must guide us. 

i. Evidently prayer in its completeness 
cannot be realized by an unregenerate soul. 
It involves repentance, submission to God's 
will and faith. The soul which fulfills these 
is born again. Prayer fulfilled is as good 
evidence of the new life as breathing is of 
the natural life. 

2. I cannot think that an awakened sin- 
ner's attempt to pray is an offence to God 
or adds to his guilt and condemnation. Can 
w r e warn impenitent men to flee from the 
coming wrath, can we put forth all our 

150 



PRAYER OF THE UNCONVERTED. IS I 

powers of logic, of rhetoric, of scriptural 
exposition, of solemn warning, of graphic 
description and of earnest declarations to 
convince them of their infinite peril, and 
when they wake up and begin to cry to 
God for mercy, blame them for that cry — 
charge that terror upon them as additional 
sin ? Would the sinner be less guilty, less 
displeasing to God, if he felt no terror ? 

3. Prayer may be the transitional act — the 
act in which the soul passes into the regen- 
erate condition — passes from impenitence to 
piety, from the kingdom of Satan into the 
kingdom of God. If a sinful soul is awak- 
ened to a sense of its guilt and need and 
peril, and begins to cry to God for mercy, 
is not the Holy Spirit then presenting Christ 
to that soul and leading it to trust in him, 
to cry unto God through him ? Trustfully 
accepting Christ, throwing itself fully on 
him, such a soul becomes regenerate, re- 
ceives " power to become a child of God." 
What human eye shall undertake the nice 
discrimination whereby it can detect the 
point at which the spontaneous cry of ter- 
ror arising from agonized natural sensibility 



152 HOME WHISPERS. 

passes into the aspiration of a true Chris- 
tian faith, uniting the soul to Christ in new- 
ness of life ? 

Verily, I know no more hopeful or prac- 
ticable way by which to lead an awakened 
soul to Christ than this very way of prayer. 
I would exhort every such soul to pray — 
not, by any means, as if its prayers could 
have merit, but as the only intelligible way 
of beginning to obey the call, " Come unto 
me," Nor would I neglect to assure such 
an one that, although his attempt to come 
should be like the feeble and timid infants 
first attempt to walk, the heavenly Father 
will lean forward and reach out his gracious 
arms to prevent the fall and to draw the 
trembling one home to his breast. 



XXVII. 

ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 

A FRIEND calls my attention to the 
following passage in a work of Miss 
Muloch : 

" The doctrine of ' Answers to Prayer/ 
literal and material, always appeared to me 
egregious folly or conceited profanity. Is 
the great Ruler of the universe to stop its 
machinery for me ? Is the wise evolution 
of certain events from certain causes, con- 
tinuing unerringly its mysterious round, by 
which all things come alike to all and for 
the final good of all, to be upset in its work- 
ings for my individual benefit? No; I 
would not, I dare not, believe such a thing. 
But I do believe in the eternal Spirit's in- 
fluence upon our spirits in momentous cri- 
ses and in a very distinct and solemn way, 
often remembered for years." 

Has Miss Muloch given the true view of 

153 



I 54 HOME WHISPERS. 

this universe, or of its Author and Govern- 
or, or of his relations to us ? I think not. 
I cannot accept this quotation as a correct 
statement of the doctrine of providence 
and of prayer. What she in terms rejects 
is not what any one holds, so far as I know. 

Suppose the skillful maker of a locomo- 
tive to be in it, guiding and governing it. 
Suppose you should see him, by the press- 
ure of his hand upon its springs or levers, 
increasing or diminishing its speed, and now 
and then stopping it. Is this free action of 
his hand in and upon its machinery, modi- 
fying the results which its forces and adjust- 
ments would naturally work out, a violation 
of its laws or a disparagement of their ex- 
cellence ? 

If you observe that he passes some sta- 
tions at full speed and halts at others, ac- 
cording as a signal is or is not raised, in- 
timating intelligibly to him the desire of 
passengers to be taken up, is this unworthy 
of him ? Does it abate from your admira- 
tion of the wisdom with which he made and 
now runs his machine ? 

Of course he will not consent that his 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 155 

machine shall " be upset in its workings for 
my individual benefit ;" but perhaps he made 
it with such skill and foresight that he can 
accommodate its running to my need, as I 
signal to him, without " upsetting " it or 
throwing it off the track. 

If he foreknew precisely my need, and 
had it in view, before he built the engine 
or laid the track, and so has no need of my 
signal, yet thinks it best for me to be re- 
quired to give the signal in order to get 
the accommodation or benefit, may he not 
have that rule and act upon it? 

You see large quantities of ice formed 
every winter. You believe (I presume) 
that this is a natural result of physical laws 
and forces as old as creation. You can 
take a small quantity of that water into 
your laboratory in July and make such an 
adjustment of natural laws and forces as to 
congeal it. With better and larger appa- 
ratus you could do the same on a much 
larger scale. God surely can make such 
an adjustment of physical forces, without 
altering any physical law, as to raise many 
barrels of that water far up into the air, 



156 HOME WHISPERS. 

congeal it and drop it destructively upon 
corn and cattle. Is it certain that he does 
not do this by an intervention as special 
as yours in your laboratory, yet no more 
choosing to annul or subvert his own nat- 
ural laws than you are able to subvert them? 

You may interpose, as above, at the re- 
quest of your friend. Suppose that you 
were sagacious enough to foresee, a year 
beforehand, that he would make such a re- 
quest, and you should purchase or make 
apparatus with reference to it, would he 
be less ready to acknowledge your polite- 
ness in complying with his request ? Would 
it seem, or would it be, a less real compli- 
ance ? 

Is Miss Muloch sure that God may not 
apply his invisible apparatus to the sur- 
face of a lake when devout people ask him 
to for their parched fields, and, because they 
ask him, may produce a shower of rain by 
as special an intervention as you would 
make in dipping up water to sprinkle on a 
flower-bed, and with just as little " upset- 
ting" or disturbance of the machinery of 
nature in one case as in the other? 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. l$7 

My friend says that she has been trou- 
bled and unable to sleep well since Miss 
Muloch's mistaken view came into her mind. 
I do not wonder. Doubtless she has felt as 
if she were on a train of cars on an endless 
track, and the engineer, after starting the lo- 
comotive, had stepped off, leaving it to run 
according to its own unalterable law. Let 
her know that that is a nightmare illusion. 
The engineer is in his seat ; his hand is on 
the machine, and his mind is in it. That 
slender cord, too weak to resist, or even to 
check, any motion of the engine, does reach 
the engineer, and he will heed the pull which 
your feeble hand gives it. He will not stop 
the engine. But he is running it not with 
indifference to your destiny, or even to your 
desires. There is a wide and sufficient 
margin within which he can and will modi- 
fy its movement at the pull of that cord. 
He may send back a brakeman even to 
your seat with secret messages for your 
ear or on errands of considerate attention 
to your wants. 

Miss Muloch avows her " belief in the 
Eternal Spirit's influence upon our spirits 



158 HOME WHISPERS. 

in momentous crises and in a very dis- 
tinct and solemn way, often remembered 
for years." 

She is right in this, and if she will duly 
consider all that is involved in this, I be- 
lieve she will see that the same Eternal 
Spirit has equal power and liberty in the 
material universe, among the laws and forces 
which he instituted and upholds, and in which 
he perpetually and wisely works — works, in- 
deed, in a very orderly manner, which we 
are able to learn, and to which we can eas- 
ily adapt ourselves — but sometimes, " in mo- 
mentous crises " and in conformity with our 
prayers, influencing the ordinary natural 
forces unto special results " in a very dis- 
tinct and solemn way/' sometimes in a very 
kind way, "often remembered for years" — 
yes, for a lifetime. 



XXVIII. 

"UNANSWERED PRAYER." 

IT is quite common to hear prayer spoken 
of as " unanswered " when its petitions 
are not granted. This seems to me an un- 
happy and misleading use of terms. When 
a letter which you have written to a friend 
is unanswered, it is difficult to be free from 
a feeling of neglect. If your letter con- 
veyed a request, and your friend replies 
declining to grant it, and giving his reasons 
or assuring you that he has good reasons 
which it would be unwise to state, he has 
answered your request, although he has not 
granted it. If his reasons are good, or if, 
not knowing his reasons, you have confi- 
dence in him, you are satisfied. You may 
even feel as thankful as if he had done 
what you desired, for his letter may give 
you strong evidence of his love for you 
and of his wisdom and goodness. 

J 59 



l6o HOME WHISPERS. 

How was it with Moses ? He greatly 
desired to go into the Promised Land, lead- 
ing the people whom he had led all the way 
from Egypt. He besought the Lord for 
this. There was a decisive reason, and one 
that was very humbling to Moses, why God 
could not grant his request. He told him 
so plainly, and somewhat sternly, but took 
him up " into the top of Pisgah " and gave 
him such a vision and such an experience 
as showed God's wonderful love to him. 
Do you think that Moses would ever speak 
of God as having failed to answer his pray- 
er? Paul had a similar experience. He 
was worried by " a thorn in his flesh " — 
whatever he meant by that ; something dis- 
tressing or irksome, we may be sure. " Con- 
cerning this thing," says Paul, " I besought 
the Lord thrice that it might depart from 
me. And he hath said unto me, My grace 
is sufficient for thee ; for my power is made 
perfect in weakness " (2 Cor. 12:8, 9). Paul 
felt this to be even a sweeter answer to his 
prayer than the granting of what he asked 
would have been. " Most gladly, therefore," 
he cheerfully adds, " will I rather glory in 



"UNANSWERED PRAYER? l6l 

my weakness, that the strength of Christ 
may rest upon me/' 

Have not many of us had similar expe- 
riences ? Has not God often answered our 
prayer with a firm and clear refusal to grant 
what we asked ? and have we not afterward 
felt that this was better for us than to have 
given us the thing that we asked for? Has 
not this been as evident to us in respect to 
our heavenly Father as it is now in respect 
to our childish experiences of our mothers' 
discriminating wisdom ? From mothers and 
fathers, and from God, some of the best 
answers to requests are refusals to grant 
them. 

I lately expressed this view in the hear- 
ing of a wise man, who replied, "That is 
merely verbal." I do not deny it. I con- 
sider that verbal accuracy is a good helper 
as well as a good instrument of logical ac- 
curacy. Precision of speech both results 
from and tends to precision of thought. 
Words not only express thoughts, but lead 
thought. An inaccurate use of words re- 
acts upon us to encourage inaccurate think- 
ing. Therefore I hold it important to say 
11 



1 62 HOME WHISPERS. 

what we think as accurately as we can, in 
order that we may think, and help others to 
think, as accurately as possible. 

When I ask something of my heavenly 
Father, and he says tenderly, " No, my child, 
that is not best for you," or says solemnly, 
" No, my child ; you have behaved so that 
I cannot properly grant you that/' I cannot 
make it seem dutiful to say that he has 
not answered me. He has given me the 
wisest, kindest, best answer that he could 
give. 

If I take it so, not in reluctant submis- 
sion to " the inevitable," but in loyal, loving 
submission to the fatherly, there is then no 
knowing into what Pisgah he may next take 
me up. And what if I should not come 
back? What then? 



XXIX. 

MOVING MOUNTAINS. 

I HAVE some excellent friends — devout 
Christians they are, too — who insist that 
diseases are now suddenly cured by prayer, 
without medicine or other natural means. 
They think that this might be done often if 
only we would pray believing, not doubting 
that what we ask shall be done. They un- 
derstand God to promise this in his word — 
e.g. in James 5: 14, 15. 

If they are right in their interpretation 
of that passage, and in claiming unlimited 
availability for it, why should such expecta- 
tion be limited to the healing of diseases ? 
Our Lord spoke in quite as strong and un- 
qualified terms about removing mountains. 
Can we literally do this by prayer ? My 
father told me of a man in Massachusetts 
who wanted a big rock removed from his 
dooryard, and did not see why he could not 

163 



164 HOME WHISPERS. 

pray it away instead of digging and blasting 
and hauling it away. He tried it, and failed. 
Shall we conclude that he failed only be- 
cause he had not faith enough ? Did the 
Lord's promise apply to that? If the man 
had believed, " beyond all lincrerino- of 
doubt," that the rock was going, wou ld it 
have gone ? Such would seem to be our 
Lord's teaching taken in exact literalness. 
Ought we to take it so ? And must we tax 
ourselves with want of faith until we can 
take it so? "Believe in God." Yes, I do 
believe in him ; I believe in his power to 
make any big stone that lies in my way 
move out of my way. I believe in his pow- 
er to make the weeds in my garden wither 
and disappear without my pulling them up, 
and to make the beans and corn and par- 
snips grow without my planting and water- 
ing them. But ought I to ask him to do so 
and to believe that he will ? I do not be- 
lieve that, for I think that God has plainly 
enough revealed to me his will that I should 
weed and till my garden, and as to any big 
stone in my path, that I should knock it into 
pieces or blow it into pieces with powder or 



MOVING MOUNTAINS. 1 65 

pry it out of the way, or else let it lie there 
and make my path around it. And I think 
that true faith is shown in complying with 
my heavenly Father's will and conditions, 
not in expecting him to comply with mine. 

If he should ever need me to go on such 
an errand or embassy as those on which he 
sent his prophets and apostles, and should 
bid me attest my commission from him by 
doing such signs as no man can do unless 
God be with him, then I shall have no right 
to doubt his power to heal the sick or raise 
the dead by my word, for it will be his word 
through me. Then, my good brothers and 
sisters, you may charge me with want of 
faith if I do not utter God's word of com- 
mand to the forces of nature with full ex- 
pectation of being obeyed. Reverently, I 
do not undertake such works now, because 
he has not given me any such commission. 

Do I not, then, pray for the sick ? In- 
deed I do, and I believe that God hears me 
always, and always gives me a kind answer. 
But sometimes that answer is, " It is not my 
will to send bodily healing ; I have some 
better thing for the sufferer. ,, Is it faith 



1 66 HOME WHISPERS. 

which accepts such an answer not only sub- 
missively, but thankfully ? Must such sub- 
missive faith be censured as weak, not strong 
enough to raise up the sick ? I cannot think 
that our Lord's instructions to " believe that 
we have" what we pray for is to be taken 
apart from all other biblical instruction. To 
make it a promise to us, we must be sure 
that what we ask, and why we ask it, and 
how we ask it, are all agreeable to God's 
will. If he does ever make any one know 
his will in any case of sickness or bodily in- 
firmity or deformity, such an one may know 
what his answer to the prayer will be. To 
me it seems a great privilege to be so en- 
couraged to hope for what I pray for. It 
does not make the privilege less precious 
nor the hope less sweet to hold it in sub- 
mission to the will of God, while I do not 
yet know what that will is. And if after- 
ward I find that God's will is not as I had 
desired, may I not well feel that still I have 
what I asked for? For was not my su- 
preme prayer, " Not as I will, but as thou 
wilt"? 



XXX. 

WRITING TO GOD. 

THERE was a touching story current 
a few years ago of a little orphan boy 
who had been taught something of Chris- 
tian truth, and who in his great destitution 
wrote a letter telling of his need, address- 
ing it to the " Lord Jesus in heaven/' and 
put it into the post-office with a simple 
faith that it would reach him. Virtually and 
effectually it did, and brought the needed 
aid by the hand of a servant of the Lord 
Jesus, who recognized the reasonableness 
of the boy's faith, and was willing, in his 
Masters name, to overlook the crudeness 
of his method. No doubt the Master is 
quite as gentle. He has to overlook some el- 
ement of superstition or formalism, or even 
something worse, in many prayers which 
he yet graciously answers, and by means 
of his answer teaches his poor, stumbling, 

167 



1 68 HOME WHISPERS. 

awkward petitioners the way of God more 
perfectly. 

Saying nothing about the post-office, 
would it not have been difficult for any 
theologian to tell the little boy why it is 
not even as rational to write to God as to 
speak to him ? Is there any more or worse 
anthropomorphism (z. e. imagining God like 
unto man) in imagining our handwriting 
coming under his eyes than in imagining 
our cry coming up into his ears ? Is it any 
more absurd to think of him reading our 
letters than hearing our voices ? Any 
honest utterance to him of our right de- 
sires reaches him. 

We read of some heathen who write their 
prayers on costly perfumed paper, and then 
burn the paper, that the prayers may as- 
cend with the sweet smoke to God. It sure- 
ly is not a gross form of heathenism. May 
not He who in one age and land appointed 
burning incense as a mode of worship look 
with tender and pitying forbearance on such 
a mode of " feeling after him " by men who 
do not know how near he is to every one 
of us ? 



WRITING TO GOD. 1 69 

But I would speak of writing to God, with 
all our knowledge of him, in the full light 
of his written revelation. Why not write 
to him as well as speak to him ? Why not 
address to him our confession, our adora- 
tion, our thanks, our petitions, with pen or 
pencil as simply and heartily as with our 
voices ? 

Dr. McCosh in his admirable early work 
on The Divine Government has an excellent 
passage on prayer, in which he urges the 
actual expression of our prayers in words 
— not, of course, because God needs such 
expression, but because we need it as a 
means of making our desires emerge from 
a dreamy vagueness into definite and vig- 
orous reality. He well says that though 
the verbal utterance is " not the sacrifice," 
it is " the cord which binds the sacrifice to 
the altar." I dare say he would recognize 
written utterance of desire to God as of the 
same value and power. 

It is possible that some readers may be 
a little startled by what I have thus written, 
having never conceived of the writing of a 
prayer as real praying, but only as the 



I70 HOME WHISPERS. 

shaping of a form in which somebody else 
is to pray afterward. The writing seems to 
them only a cool intellectual exercise, and I 
do not wonder that they dislike it. Some- 
thing like this is the prejudice of some good 
people against written sermons. They im- 
agine the minister simply exercising his in- 
tellect upon a piece of composition which 
he is to read next Sunday. They have not 
learned how a pastor writes at his desk, 
with his congregation before him, " in his 
mind's eye," as distinctly as he will see 
them on Sunday, and with all their needs 
in his heart stirring as fervent desire and 
love as when he and they are face to face 
in the sanctuary. Sermons are written thus 
in as fervent heat of devout and affectionate 
emotion as is ever felt in the delivery of a 
sermon, written or unwritten. 

I have no doubt that the prayers which 
have been in print for ages, and which the 
Church will never let die, were originally 
uttered honestly and directly to God — not 
composed, with painstaking care, to be used 
afterward. This is true, no doubt equally, 
of the prayers in verse, such as "Jesus, 



WRITING TO GOD. 171 

lover of my soul/' " O God, our help in 
ages past," " My faith looks up to Thee," 
and of those which formed and fill the 
grand prose of the Litany and some of the 
Collects. Is it only men of rare genius — 
poets and masters of prose composition — 
who may write to God ? As well might we 
say that only poets and orators should 
speak to him. The little girl who wrote 
to the queen the other day to tell her how 
glad she was that the wicked assassin did 
not kill her, got as gracious an answer as 
Gladstone's grandest rhetoric could have 
secured. 

I wish every little girl and boy whom I 
know and care for would write to God 
every day. This is what I mean — not to 
try how fine or how good a prayer you can 
make up and put into writing, but to think 
of God just as you think of your father 
when he is away from home, or of any kind 
uncle or friend whom you cannot see just 
now, and to whom you really want to send 
some message of love or thanks or some 
request. You would take your paper and 
pen and write just that. So, if there really 



172 HOME WHISPERS. 

is something which you would like to tell 
the Lord Jesus if you sat with him as Mary 
did in Bethany, or something you really 
wish him to do for you which you believe 
that he can do, I would have you take paper 
and a pen and write it to him. Do you ask 
me if he will read it? Yes, I am sure that 
he will. Perhaps some will ask, " Is it not 
just as well to speak it to him with our 
lips ?" Yes, it is just as well, but I wish to 
show you that it is not any better, and that 
perhaps if you should do both ways it would 
more help you to learn to pray than doing 
only one. You need not show it to anybody ; 
you need not keep it. Perhaps it is just as 
well to burn it ; but if you do, I would have 
you think while it burns, just as you would 
not thoughtlessly burn a letter from a dear 
friend after reading it. 

And would not mature Christians and 
ministers find wi'iting to God, besides speak- 
ing to him, an additional and a good way of 
cultivating " the spirit and the gift of pray- 
er "? I dare say that many use this means. 
But perhaps many do not, and I would be 
glad to get such to think of it. It may not 



WRITING TO GOD. 1 73 

be the best way for all, but those who do 
not find it so will not object to others avail- 
ing themselves of a means of grace which 
helps them. 



XXXI. 

"THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN." 

IF I could not be Paul himself, I hardly 
know who of all Paul's acquaintance I 
would rather have been than Luke, his 
companion in travel, his companion in his 
bonds, staying with him alone (2 Tim. 4 : 11) 
when others had left him — his " beloved 
physician." 

To account for his being alone with Paul 
at that solemn and trying time we do not 
need to charge unfaithfulness upon all who 
had been Paul's companions during his con- 
finement in Rome ; for, although he sadly 
says " Demas hath forsaken me, having lov- 
ed this present world," he does not oblige 
us to think that Crescens and Titus have 
gone away impelled by unworthy motives, 
and he says expressly that he has sent Tych- 
icus to Ephesus. He also writes confiding- 
ly to Timothy, urging him to " come to him 

174 



"THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN? 175 

shortly," to " come before winter " and bring 
his " cloak which he left at Troas," and he 
counts on comfort from the kind and profit- 
able ministering of Mark, whom he desires 
Timothy to bring with him. 

No, Paul did not feel friendless then. Not 
only would the Lord be always with him, 
though all men should forsake him, but he 
knew many faithful men and women who 
loved him and remembered him and prayed 
for him. Yet it was with peculiar feeling 
that he wrote " Luke alone is with me " 
(Col. 4 : n). 

Did Paul keep Luke there perhaps be- 
cause he needed his professional care in his 
old age, after so many toils and so many 
hardships and exposures by land and by 
sea? Did Luke refuse to leave him be- 
cause his watchful eye saw that Paul needed 
his professional care more than Paul knew 
or would willingly acknowledge ? Had he 
the tact to conceal this professional solici- 
tude under the equally true desire to enjoy 
Paul's company and instruction and to fill 
his own mind and memorandum-book with 
those memoirs which the Holy Spirit was 



1 7 6 HOME WHISPERS. 

movinof him to write to ' ; most excellent 
Theophilus " and to us ? I do not know 
how that was, but I have known physicians 
who possessed such gentle tact, and it went 
far to make them beloved physicians to those 
for whom they cared, especially to such cul- 
tured and susceptible souls as Paul. 

If I might not be a minister of the gospel, 
a pastor taking care of souls, I know not 
what else I would rather be than a physician 
skilled to minister at bedsides and in cham- 
bers of the sick, worthy to be looked to by 
anxious households when the chill shadow 
of death makes them shudder, worthy to be 
trusted as a sentry by a community when 
the " pestilence walketh in darkness." 

The highest skill in medicine is not all 
that such a trusted and beloved physician 
must have, or, rather, skill in a physician 
includes much more than knowledge of 
anatomy and physiology and the materia 
medica. It includes high acquaintance with 
the human soul in its peculiar powers and 
in their relations to the bodv. It involves 
not merely knowledge of the body as a 
thing which it has dissected, a machine 



"THE BELOVED PHYSICIANS 1 77 

whose parts it has taken asunder and han- 
dled. It involves reverence for that body 
as the supreme handiwork of Jehovah, 
whose infinite skill and care are illustrated 
in all its joints and members, all its parts 
and organs, all its processes and powers. 
It involves tender appreciation of all the 
liabilities and capabilities of such a soul in 
such a body. It involves genuine sympathy 
with sufferers, suffusing and beautifying, not 
enfeebling nor hindering, the business of 
relieving, making it not less effective and 
successful business because clothed upon 
with graces which present it ever as inter- 
course, conversation, fellowship. 

When I wrote (a few sentences back) "if 
I might not be a minister of the gospel" I 
was just going to write "minister of Christ" 
but my pen was held back from that word 
by this thought: May not the physician 
also, as well as the pastor, be a minister of 
Christ ? What is ministry but service — ser- 
vice of honor and love ? Did not Luke 
minister to Paul ? And did not Christ, who 
notices and will reward every " cup of cold 
water " given to a disciple, accept that as 
12 



178 HOME WHISPERS, 

a ministering to him ? And now, when a 
Christian physician, loving the Lord Jesus, 
comes beside the bed whereon you lie sick, 
or stands with you bending over the cradle 
in which your infant moans, or you follow 
him out from your sick wife's chamber to 
make anxious inquiry concerning her, could 
any other mortal have better opportunity 
to be a minister of Christ to you in the 
best and most sacred sense ? What better 
opportunity has any pastor? There are 
beloved physicians who know their privi- 
lege and use it. God bless them and mul- 
tiply them ! Has not he given their pro- 
fessional brother Luke such eminent place 
in Holy Scripture and in the Christian his- 
tory for their encouragement? Need any 
Christian physician now fail to be in the 
church to which he belongs, in the Christian 
mission of which he is a member, in the 
hospital through whose wards he makes his 
daily round, in many a household, to many 
. a sufferer, to many a tempted, many an 
erring one, to little children, to youthful 
mothers, to the gray-haired and venerable, 
and to the robust supporters of the depend- 



"THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN" 1 79 

ent and feeble, — to all these just what 
Luke was to Paul, " the beloved physician"? 
A Christian physician, called of God to 
be that, having made his vocation sure to 
his own mind by seasonably asking, " Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do?" has no need 
to feel that he is less favored, or must be 
less useful or is less privileged to live near 
to God, than if he had been called to the 
ministry of the word. To whatever depart- 
ment of his service God calls us, obeying 
that call, we can do most for him. In that, 
whatever it is, let us know ourselves " God's 
ministers, attending continually on that very 
thing." 



XXXII. 

"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." 

THEN the Sabbath is a permanent in- 
stitution. The Sabbath law, rightly 
interpreted, is a law for all mankind. There 
are some who call it a Jewish institution, 
and consider that it vanished away with 
circumcision and the ritual of the temple 
and its bloody sacrifices. Jesus did not say 
anything of that sort. He said this very 
different thing : " The Sabbath was made 
for man " — not for the Jewish man, not for 
the Puritan man, not for the man of any 
one land or time, but for max, wherever 
and whenever he exists, in all lands and 
all times. 

Is not this just what " the Lord of the 
Sabbath " might be expected to say, con- 
sidering the reason which is annexed to the 
fourth commandment? According to that, 
the Sabbath was instituted, not to commem- 

180 



"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." l8l 

orate the exodus from Egypt, but to com- 
memorate God's resting from his work of 
creation. The creation of the world was not 
an event of Jewish history and of only na- 
tional significance. This magnificent frame 
of nature, which God so deliberately estab- 
lished, including not only these vast bulks 
of matter, but all these mighty and subtle 
and complex forces which modern science 
is so grandly disclosing and investigating, — 
this grand, marvelous nature is no narrow 
Jewish concern. The world was made for 
man ; nature was contrived and instituted 
for mankind, and so also was the Sabbath. 

The law of the Ten Commandments, 
thundered from Sinai and engraved on the 
two tables of stone, includes the formulated 
law of the Sabbath ; but the Sabbath was 
not then instituted as a new thing, any 
more than the family was then first insti- 
tuted by the fifth and seventh command- 
ments. The family and the Sabbath were 
both instituted in Eden, in the beginning 
of human history, when Adam recognized 
the " help meet for him " whom God had 
made of his own bone and flesh, and when 



1 82 HOME WHISPERS, 

God " rested from all his work which he had 
made/' The fifth and seventh command- 
ments enunciate rules of filial and conjugal 
behavior which have been recognized and 
enforced in the world's history from the be- 
ginning ; and the fourth commandment does 
not introduce a new thing, but calls men to 
remember a thing well known before. 

Then the Sabbath is a divine institution. 
We sometimes hear it spoken of as a " Mo- 
saic institution. " This is not a denial that 
it is divine if those who use the expression 
acknowledge the " divine legation " and in- 
spiration of Moses. The writings of Moses 
which we have are the word of God. What- 
ever Moses enjoined by God's authority is 
of divine institution. But it is important 
to keep this in mind, and to guard against 
speaking or thinking of what Moses deliv- 
ered or instituted as if it had only the au- 
thority of " the man Moses. 1 ' Besides this, 
Moses did not institute the Sabbath in any 
sense. He recognized it as an institution 
which had existed ages before he was born, 
or rather Moses received from God his rec- 
ognition of it, graven in stone, and God's 



"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." 1 83 

solemn charge to " remember it and keep it 
holy!' No lower authority than that of God 
is competent to establish any institution for 
man, for all mankind. No human authority 
has ever reached so far. " The Lord of the 
Sabbath must be the Lord of the race, Lord 
of the world, Lord of nature and creation. " 

The Sabbath is a benevolent institution. 
It is not a severe restriction upon human 
liberty ; it is a benefit conferred upon man. 
When Christ affirmed that " the Sabbath 
was made for man," no one can suppose 
him to have meant less than that it was 
made for the good of man. Can any one 
believe that Jesus regarded the Sabbath of 
the Old Testament, the Sabbath of Sinai 
and of Eden, as one of the evils from 
which he came to deliver mankind? He 
claimed that the Sabbath is a good gift of 
God to mankind — that the Sabbath law, 
rightly understood and kept, is a blessing 
to all who so keep it. 

Then all mankind have a right to the 
Sabbath. 

Is there any other so sure basis for hu- 
man rights as divine institution ? " We hold 



184 HOME WHISPERS. 

these truths to be self-evident — that all man- 
kind are created equal, and are endowed by 
their Creato7> with certain inalienable rights/' 
By whom else could they be so endowed ? 
" Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness/' if 
God conferred these upon men as such — 
not upon rich men, not upon men of aristo- 
cratic blood, not upon white men, but upon 
men, all mankind — then all men have a right 
to them. Notice how this right is guaran- 
teed in the fourth commandment: "Thou, 
nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is with- 
in thy gates/' You are not permitted to 
enjoy the Sabbath rest yourself and exact 
labor on that day from men and women in 
your employ — no, nor from your beasts of 
burden. The ox and horse have rights 
which their human owners are bound to 
respect. How much more the humble hu- 
man laborers dependent on their wages for 
sustenance ! One of the most cruel organ- 
ized wrongs now oppressing large classes 
of our countrymen is the driving them to la- 
bor continuously — seven days in the week — 
by our great corporations, especially the rail- 



"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." 1 85 

road companies and the United States gov- 
ernment in its post-office business. Rail- 
road engineers and conductors and brake- 
men, mail-agents and post-office clerks, — 
all have a right to Sabbath rest as well as 
other men. 

It is possible to spoil the Sabbath by ex- 
cessive rigidness in the observance of it. 
This had happened in our Lord's time 
under the teaching of the Pharisees. We 
have a specimen of this in their fault-finding 
about those ears of corn, and other speci- 
mens in their daring to criticise Christ's 
miracles of healing wrought on the Sabbath 
Day. What amazing stupidity was that 
which prevented them from seeing that He 
who could do such miracles was indeed 
Lord of the Sabbath ! Showing himself 
the Lord of nature, whose forces obeyed 
him as Roman soldiers obeyed their centu- 
rion, he is no doubt their Lord, and they 
would do well humbly to take their inter- 
pretation of the law from his conduct, rather 
than impudently assume to regulate his con- 
duct by their interpretation of the law. 

If he had abolished the Sabbath, releasing 



1 86 HOME WHISPERS. 

all mankind from its restriction and depriv- 
ing all mankind of its privileges, who could 
question the validity of that abolishment? 
What effect would this have had upon hu- 
man society? Especially what effect would 
it have had upon laboring people ? The 
Lord of the Sabbath did no such thing. 
What did he do ? He healed some sick 
people on the Sabbath. He insisted that 
reaching out your hand to some ears of 
wheat growing beside the path, rubbing 
them in your hands and eating the kernels, 
is not a violation of the Sabbath law. He 
approved of helping a dumb animal out of 
a ditch into which it has fallen on the Sab- 
bath. This comes about as near to repeal- 
ing the fourth commandment as the liberty 
to eat a handful of your neighbors grain 
when walking hungry through his fields is 
to repeal the eighth commandment. The 
Lord of the Sabbath did not abolish it. He 
did not repeal the fourth commandment. 
He did not even amend it. He blew away 
the pharisaic nonsense about it, and left it 
in its primitive holiness and its primitive 
beneficence. 



"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." 1 87 

There is nothing in our Lord's words or 
his recorded examples which gives any 
countenance to the idea of changing the 
weekly holy day into a secular holiday, of 
making it anything else than a day of holy 
rest. 

Reader, if the Lord of the Sabbath were 
here, walking our streets as of old he walked 
the streets of Capernaum and Bethany, if 
he were your guest over a Sabbath Day, 
would it be pharisaical rigidness of Sabbath 
observance which he would find occasion to 
correct ? The Lord of the Sabbath is here. 
Beware ! 



XXXIII. 

"CAST A HOOK." 

WHEN Christ called Simon and An- 
drew from their customary employ- 
ment to become his followers, he promised 
to make them u fishers of men." Thus he 
took their previous occupation to illustrate 
the work for which he would now train them 
and to which he would afterward send them. 
On another occasion, recorded by Luke, he 
made use of the same figure, varying the 
form of expression, saying to Simon, " Fear 
not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men." 

We readily understand that the illustra- 
tion is intended to apply only to one side 
of the subject. Men are not to be caught 
to their harm and for the benefit of the 
fisher. They are to be diligently sought, 
patiently won, that they may be rescued 
and saved. 

The methods of the fisherman, and the 

188 



"CAST A HOOKP 1 89 

qualities and habits of mind which are ne- 
cessary to his success, are strikingly analo- 
gous to those of the winner of souls, the 
"fisher of men." 

This illustration is most frequently pre- 
sented with reference to fishing with a net 
and gathering a great multitude of fishes at 
once. This is an obvious and just applica- 
tion of it, but ought we not also to consider 
it with reference to fishing with a hook for 
one fish at a time ? 

This method was not unknown to the 
Galilean fishermen, for it was thus that Si- 
mon Peter took the fish with the piece of 
money in its mouth. This method of fish- 
ing (angling), as it is pursued along the 
margin of rivers, in boats out upon lake 
or sound, and especially along mountain- 
brooks in which the shy trout lurks, is 
specially interesting, because it taxes and 
trains the ingenuity, the self-control, the 
patience of the angler. There may be 
more tact and perseverance demanded to 
catch one speckled swimmer from the crys- 
tal brook than to fill a net from the dark 
deep. 



190 HOME WHISPERS. 

The angler studies the habits and dispo- 
sition of the fish he is seeking. He reads 
books which treat of it ; he makes care- 
ful observations for himself; he watches at- 
tentively and studies diligently to become 
as well acquainted as he can with the object 
of his search. Whatever knowledge he thus 
studiously gains, he carefully and patiently 
applies. You shall see him creeping very 
cautiously along the bank, careful not to 
jostle a stone nor break a dry stick, nor 
let his own shadow fall too suddenly across 
the still pool in the bend of the stream. 
You shall see him lie at full length upon the 
turf, gently moving his hook over the edge 
of the bank into the water, and waiting pa- 
tiently for hours till the fish shall swim by 
or till the fish swimming thereabout shall 
become accustomed to the sight of the bait 
and lose his fear of it, or till hunger shall 
prompt him to swallow it. Then the angler 
draws him forth and goes away contented, 
for he carries home what will furnish his 
family a delicious meal, peradventure a 
needed delicacy for a suffering invalid dear 
to him. It was something rare and precious 



"cast a hook: 1 191 

for which he so skillfully sought and so pa- 
tiently waited. 

We have seen similar skill and studious- 
ness and patience practiced by a teacher for 
a wayward, reckless, perverse pupil, count- 
ing no painstaking too much, no careful 
study too laborious, no waiting and watch- 
ing too long, if at last he could be rescued 
from indolence, from mischief, from folly, 
from his own manifold perverseness. We 
have seen a wise nurse watch and wait and 
control herself, suppressing all her fears, 
keeping her eye light, her voice soft and 
mild and her whole manner calm and even 
that she might at last bring back the mind 
of her patient from its delirium, and restore 
him to himself. So also have we seen a 
mother or a wife or a sister — sometimes 
a daughter — bearing patiently, on a sore 
heart, the anxiety tinged with shame which 
a dear but cruel one inflicts by his selfish 
indulgence. If only she can at last save 
him, she will count no careful study of him, 
no skillful adaptation of herself to him, no 
patient bearing with him, too great a price 
for the joy that will then enrich her. 



192 HOME WHISPERS. 

Such patient and watchful effort is not 
confined to one sex. There are manly 
hearts that carry solicitudes as tender as 
the heart of any woman. 

Is anything more Christ-like than such 
watching unto prayer and such persistence 
in study and care and delicate endeavor for 
a single soul, to lead souls, one by one, to 
Jesus ? 

Should this kind of Christian work be 
disparaged in comparison with that which 
we do in crowds, by organizations, by con- 
ventions, and in methods which are fully 
open to public observation ? 

Need we doubt that now, in our land, in 
families, in schools, in congregations, much 
of such Christian work is silently done, un- 
seen by men, unheralded, unreported, un- 
recorded except in that " Book of Remem- 
brance " which is written before the Lord ? 

It has seemed to me that in published 
statements and reports of Christian work, 
and public appeals in behalf of it, not 
enough account is taken of those kinds 
of Christian work which must be done pri- 
vately and quietly, in which men and women 



"CAST A HOOK." 193 

may be very diligently engaged without be- 
coming much known as " Christian workers." 
There really is a good deal of Christian 
work that can be so done that " the left 
hand will not know what the right hand 
doeth." I think that anxious pastors and 
other anxious watchers in Zion may prop- 
erly be comforted by the probability that a 
good deal of such work is done of which 
they know nothing. 

But doubtless there is a great deal more 
of such work which somebody ought to be 
doing. Many Christians need encourage- 
ment more than they need stimulus to such 
work. They need to be kindly assured that 
they can do it, rather than vehemently as- 
sured that they ought to do it, or harshly 
censured for not having done it. Timid, 
bashful reader, frightened by harsh voices 
and reproachful words, listen now to the 
gentle voice which says, " Follow me, and 
I will make you a fisher of men." You know 
that voice. Can you resist its persuasion ? 
" Follow him." Do you not see him? Then 
look for his footsteps. He " went about 
doing good." Ask him in your next prayer 

13 



194 HOME WHISPERS. 

to help you see where and to whom you can 
do any oood — a-ood of whatever kind, o-ood 
to the body or good to the soul, a loaf of 
bread, a warm garment, a load of coal or 
wood, an orange for lips dry with fever, a 
bunch of flowers for the eyes and nostrils 
of some weary invalid or the sad inmate of 
some prison-cell or some retreat for the in- 
sane. Surely there is some one whom you 
can find for whom vou can do something, 
at least some such little thing, "a cup of 
cold water" for the sake of Christ, silently 
understood between him and you as his 
service. Begin to follow him so simply, 
and simply keep on, and he will make you 
to become a fisher of men. He will teach 
you how to find, to reach and to win souls. 
If you should win only one, the conscious- 
ness of having done it will be a joy to you 
" millions of ages hence." But it is very 
likely you may win a considerable number. 
If you go quietly, humbly, prayerfully and 
diligently about such work, and keep on in 
it, "your labor shall not be in vain." The 
sympathizing Master will see every effort 
you make. He will know just how much 



«cast a hook:' 195 

it costs you. He will appreciate all. No 
matter, then, whether the world know you, 
Quite as well if they do not. You need not 
envy those who are called to more public 
and more conspicuous work. And you 
must not judge them as if they loved that 
publicity. To more of them than you think 
that is the cross they are bearing. Such 
seclusion as is granted you would be a 
haven of rest to them. Every one, where 
the Master puts him, let him work for the 
Master. But is it not pitable, is it not 
dreadful, not to be doing anything for 
Christ, neither helping to draw the net 
nor going alone to cast the hook? 



XXXIV. 

THE BURDEN DROPPED ENTIRELY. 

I WAS sitting alone in my study when 
a lady called whom I had never seen. 
Introducing herself politely, she informed 
me that she had called on behalf of a wom- 
an living at No. — M street, whose 

husband was evidently in an advanced stage 
of pulmonary consumption and was very 
irreligious. The wife could not bear to have 
him die without any Christian speaking to 
him in regard to the want and peril of his 
soul, but she desired not to have him know 
that she had sent for a minister, as it would 
probably enrage him. It seemed a difficult 
affair to manage, and yet evidently it must 
not be neglected. It was a plain call of 
God to preach the gospel to the fellow- 
man, " whether he would hear or whether 
he would forbear." It was evidently a fit 
occasion for endeavoring to help a woman 

196 



THE BURDEN DROPPED ENTIRELY. 1 97 

under an unusual burden of womanly anx- 
iety. It was a case in which it was impos- 
sible not to feel deeply one's dependence 
on the providence and the Spirit of God 
for all hope of success. 

I repaired immediately to the place indi- 
cated. The house fronted directly upon the 
pavement, and the front door opened di- 
rectly into the principal room, in which 
stood the patient's bed and in which his 
wife was busily occupied. Much to my 
relief, he himself was not there. Feeble 
though he was, he was able to walk a 
short distance and then ride a few miles 
in a street-car, thus enjoying the fresh air 
of a fine morning. 

This favorable providential ordering gave 
me a good opportunity to converse with his 
wife and become better acquainted with his 
circumstances and antecedents before meet- 
ing the man. She told me that he and she 
had once been members of a church, but 
that for twelve years neither of them had 
been within a place of worship. Her hus- 
band was a gambler, and everything else 
that a gambler is apt to be. He had not 



I98 HOME WHISPERS. 

been more faithful to her than to God. 
They had been alienated from each other 
and separated for years. But now, broken 
in health, needing the care and nursing 
which no other could give, he had asked to 
be taken home to her. She had consented, 
and would do all she could for his comfort 
and welfare while life should last and (if 
anything were possible) for his safety be- 
yond death. She frankly confessed her 
own religious delinquency along with her 
husband's, and did not seem disposed to 
cast any unnecessary reproach upon him. 

After a little while the street-car in which 
he had made a circuit stopped at his door, 
and he soon entered. He was of a slight 
figure, perhaps five feet and eight or nine 
inches in height, and quite slender, now 
made more light and fragile by the slow 
wasting of his disease. He had light hair 
and eyes, a bright and pleasant counte- 
nance, and his manners were altogether 
easy and gentlemanly. 

Not choosing to announce myself as a 
minister, I rose as he entered, offered him 
my hand, gave him my name, told him that 



THE BURDEN DROPPED ENTIRELY. 1 99 

I was his neighbor, and, hearing of his sick- 
ness, had come to see him. He responded 
politely, welcomed me cordially, requested 
me to be seated, and took his own seat with 
evident gratification at my neighborly atten- 
tion. After a little miscellaneous conver- 
sation I alluded to his evident prospect of 
finishing his earthly life before long, and in- 
quired as to his readiness for that. He was 
already too decisively committed to gentle- 
manly treatment of me to repel me as his 
wife had feared. Perhaps also God had 
been preparing him within for what he had 
providentially so favorably arranged with- 
out. Nevertheless, my first allusion to his 
spiritual state brought a cloud over his face 
which was not far from a frown, and he let 
me plainly see that that subject was unwel- 
come and conversation upon it quite irk- 
some. 

Unwilling to risk making it impossible to 
repeat my visit, and not thinking it wise, at 
any rate, to fatigue or worry him, I soon 
rose to leave, expressing kind wishes and 
asking if he would like to have me come 
in again. His response was cordial and 



200 HOME WHISPERS. 

his invitation to visit him again evidently 
sincere. 

I did not allow many days to pass before 
repeating my visit. He welcomed me cor- 
dially, and with me as cordially a brother 
accompanying me, the superintendent of a 
mission Sabbath-school in which two chil- 
dren of the sick man were pupils. He was 
evidently glad to see us, and ever after not 
only was not unwilling, but was solemnly 
eager, to talk about the gospel and his own 
brief opportunity to secure its offered ben- 
efit. In one of my visits, not late in the 
forenoon, I found him very eagerly read- 
ing the New Testament. He had already 
read twelve chapters that morning. It 
seemed new to him, and deeply interesting. 
His manner was intensely solemn. He said 
that I could hardly have an idea how wicked 
a man he was, and how vile and hateful a 
life he had lived. He wanted to tell me all, 
but had not strength then to control the 
distressing 1 emotion which such a review 
would awaken. I assured him that any 
such recital was quite unnecessary. I was 
no father confessor. I neither demanded 



THE BURDEN DROPPED ENTIRELY. 201 

nor asked that he should disclose to me 
the sins of which he was guilty. He had 
only to confess them to God and to any 
fellow-creatures who had been wronged by 
him (if that was practicable), and I was fully 
authorized by Holy Scripture to assure him 
that whatever his sins might be, the blood 
of Christ was able to cleanse him from all. 
In Christ's own name and by his authority, 
as his commissioned ambassador, I offered 
him, then and there, full pardon and abso- 
lution for all his sins of whatever enormity, 
and without needing or caring myself to 
know what they were, if only he honestly 
and penitently confessed them to God, 
heartily renounced them and believingly 
laid the burden of them on the Lamb of 
God, who was able and willing to bear 
them. 

He assured me that he fully believed 
what I said, and that he understood the 
gospel in that way. He did not feel obliged 
to confess to me, but it would be a relief 
to his mind to tell me all whenever he 
should feel strong enough to do so. In 
this view I consented, on a subsequent day, 



202 HOME WHISPERS. 

to hear his self-accusing story ; and truly it 
was a sad one. He had indeed forfeited all 
claim to good standing in society and all 
claim to the confidence or love of the 
wife, who was now faithfully and tenderly 
nursing him, helping him down as gently 
as she could to the grave. 

I could not hesitate to repeat my assur- 
ance that still the blood of Christ could 
cleanse from all that pollution. I reiterated 
the Lord's own offer of free and full par- 
don, and the guilty man promptly accepted 
it. Very speedily the gloom left his face 
and his voice and his whole manner. Very 
soon he became quite cheerful and happy. 
So entirely free from any burden did he 
appear that I became troubled for him. I 
did not see how he could be so untroubled 
after such a career if he had an adequate 
sense of its enormity. I questioned whether 
I had been faithful and thorough enough 
with him, whether I had probed the wound 
duly before pouring in the healing oil, 
whether I had taken due care that he 
should know and feel for what he needed 
pardoning mercy. 



THE BURDEN DROPPED ENTIRELY, 203 

Revolving such thoughts as these, and 
dreading the mistake of healing a soul's 
hurt slightly, dreading to let him go into 
eternity, there to find that he had come 
short of a true repentance, I sought an 
interview with him and tenderly but plainly 
told him all that I feared. He listened at- 
tentively, as he always did, and, as soon as 
he began to see the purport of my com- 
munication his old look of pain and shame 
stole over his face ; yet not quite the same 
look : his features grew rigid, the red veins 
swelled visibly in his eyes, his look became 
one of intense suffering. When I ceased 
speaking he replied, " Did you not tell me 
that, confessing my sins to God, I w r as for- 
given ? Did you not say that I might cast 
all that burden on my Saviour, who offers 
to take it and is able and willing to bear it? 
Must I still bear that crushing load? I 
thought it was taken off by my Saviour, 
and that I was quite right to let it all go. 
Have I misunderstood you ? Have I mis- 
understood the gospel ? Have I misunder- 
stood Christ ?" 

It was enough. I hastened to reassure 



204 HOME WHISPERS. 

the penitent, to encourage the believer, to 
restore his complete rest and peace and joy 
in Christ. I hope that I effectually learned 
never again to go back on the gospel. 



XXXV. 

THE LION-LAMB. 

WHEN John, in the Apocalypse, wept 
at the vision of that awful book the 
seals of which no one was found worthy to 
open, his grief was soothed by the assur- 
ance that " the lion of the tribe of Judah " 
was equal to that great undertaking. 

The dying Jacob, when declaring the fu- 
ture of their offspring to his sons, the heads 
of the tribes, made the lion the emblem of 
Judah, the regal tribe from which the scep- 
tre should not depart " until Shiloh come." 
Everywhere and always among mankind 
the lion is regarded as the fit emblem of 
strength, of majesty, of royal dominion. 
No speaker would ever need to explain 
his figure who should speak of any heroic 
man as a lion or as a lion-like man. 

When John had been comforted by the 
assurance that the seals of the mysterious 

205 



206 HOME WHISPERS, 

book should be opened by Judah's lion, for 
what appearance did he look? Of what 
form and aspect should be the grand being 
whom one of the elders thus designated 
and declared able to do what no other " in 
heaven nor in earth nor under the earth " 
could do ? John was already familiar with 
symbolic language and figures. He would 
probably expect to see some human or an- 
gelic figure, erect and strong, majestic in 
stature, glorious in apparel, and of a coun- 
tenance glowing with the look of heroic 
fortitude and kingly authority. Many years 
before John had seen the Lord Jesus trans- 
figured, " his face shining as the sun, and 
his raiment white as the light," and had 
fallen to the ground overpowered by the 
glorious vision. Very recently, on that 
"Lord's Day" upon Patmos, he had seen 
him again, clothed with kingly garments, 
his eyes as a flame of fire, his very feet 
burning with awful splendor, and his coun- 
tenance as the sun shining in his strength, 
while his voice was "as the sound of many 
waters." 

Naturally, John would look to see " the 



THE LION-LAMB. 207 

lion of the tribe of Judah " in some such 
form of visible glory and power. He looks 
to the centre of divine manifestation, toward 
the throne already revealed (Rev. 4 : 2, 3), 
on which He who sat " was to look upon 
like a jasper and a sardine stone/' and 
round about which was " a rainbow in sight 
like unto an emerald" — around which also 
bowed in adoration the four-and-twenty el- 
ders and those four mysterious cherubic 
beings " full of eyes " and with faces sym- 
bolic of power and patience and swiftness 
and wisdom. He looks, but lo ! in the midst 
of these he beholds One in whom power 
reposes in such serenity, in whom majes- 
ty is veiled in such meekness, and whose 
whole aspect and expression are so elo- 
quent of past anguish replaced by infinite 
satisfaction, that he feels himself gazing not 
upon Judah's lion, but upon " the Lamb of 
God." 

John, to whom this vision was vouchsafed, 
was standing, we reasonably believe (John 
1 : 40), at the Jordan when Jesus came 
thither for his baptism. He had looked 
upon him " as he walked," when the great 



208 HOME WHISPERS. 

Baptizer had exclaimed, " Behold the Lamb 
of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world !" John had reclined beside the Lord 
at the Last Supper and had " leaned on his 
breast ;" John had stood near the cross of 
Jesus, and heard his last words, and led his 
mother away from that awful scene " unto 
his own home," her soul pierced with the 
sword of maternal anguish. No one better 
than John knew the aspect of " the Lamb 
that was slain," the Lamb " that taketh 
away the sin of the world." To John that 
infinite meekness and that infinite majesty 
were not inconsistent. He could see them 
both in the face of his beloved Lord. 

Scourged, blood-stained, pinioned, pale, 
stooping under the timber on which he was 
to be " lifted up," John had seen them lead 
him "as a lamb to the slaughter." Re- 
turned from the sepulchre, having "abol- 
ished death," "leading captivity captive," 
calmly claiming " all power in heaven and 
earth," John had seen him ascend from 
Olivet and disappear in the heavens. To 
the memory, the love and the prophetic 
vision of John, Jesus meekly submitting to 



THE LION- LA MB, 209 

the judgment of Pilate and Jesus enthroned 
on the clouds of heaven, with his mighty 
angels coming to judgment, Jesus the Lamb 
and Jesus the Lion, Jesus of Nazareth and 
Jesus Jehovah, were ever one and the same 
wonderful person — inexplicable, incompre- 
hensible, adorable, "the chief among ten 
thousand, and altogether lovely. ,, 

The visions which John saw upon Patmos 
he was directed to write, not only for the 
seven churches of Asia, but for all the 
churches of Christ throughout all the world 
and for all who call on the name of Jesus. 

Reverently reading this book to-day, awed 
by its yet unsealed mysteries and comforted 
by its blessed assurances, there is vouch- 
safed to us some spiritual beholding of 
these " visions of God." 

We are privileged to look not backward 
only, but forward and upward also. We 
remember our Lord upon the cross ; we 
behold him " in the midst of the throne and 
the elders and the four living beings." But 
there we behold him still as the Lamb, the 
Lamb that was slain. 

Lo ! he has taken the mystic volume and 

14 



2IO HOME WHISPERS. 

is breaking its awful seals. As the volume 
unrolls from his hand we find ourselves not 
able yet to understand its disclosures. The 
white horse, on which a crowned one rides 
forth conquering and to conquer; the red 
horse, whose rider is empowered to take 
peace from the earth ; the black horse, 
whose rider holds forth " a pair of balances 
in his stern, steady hands ;" the pale horse, 
upon which death sits and whom hell fol- 
lows ; the souls of the martyrs seen under 
the altar, " slain for the word of God and 
the testimony which they held," and their 
plaintive cry, " How long, O Lord, holy and 
true, dost thou not avenge our death?" "the 
white robes given unto every one of them;" 
the great earthquake ; the sun blackened "as 
sackcloth of hair ;" the stars falling like un- 
timely figs from the wind-shaken fig tree ; 
the mountains and islands moving out of 
their places, and the very heavens rolled 
together and departing as a scroll shrivel- 
ing in flame ; and kings of earth and weak 
men and rich men and chief captains and 
mighty men and bondmen and free men 
hiding themselves in dens and rocks of the 



THE LION-LAMB. 211 

mountains, — how should we expect, from 
this point of view and with our feeble 
vision, to comprehend all these ? Why 
need we wonder that all who have essayed 
the complete and minute exposition of 
them have so lamentably failed to satisfy 
us? 

. Let us sit in the reverent silence to 
which all heaven is hushed at the opening 
of the seventh seal. Let our eyes pass 
from those appalling visions to the beautiful 
angel standing by the altar with his golden 
censer, and let our believing prayers ascend 
up with the smoke of the incense which he 
offers with the prayers of the saints. Let 
us also prepare our hearts, that we may 
join in the new song wherewith they greet 
the Lion-Lamb : " Thou art worthy to take 
the book, and to open the seals thereof; for 
thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to 
God by thy blood:' 



XXXVI. 

JOHN'S EMBASSY TO JESUS. 

AT the Jordan, John had given very 
i\ clear and explicit testimony to Jesus 
that he was the Christ of Old-Testament 
prophecy. 

In prison afterward how was it that he 
needed to send two of his disciples to him 
to ask him whether indeed he was " He 
that should come"? 

Some have assumed that this was for the 
sake of his disciples, and not for his own 
sake — to assure their faith by a personal 
interview with the Lord more strongly than 
he found his own testimony able to assure 
it. 

That John wished thus to help his disci- 
ples seems probable. We know that he 
wished them to trust in Jesus, and not in 
himself. But I cannot help thinking that 
John himself was also just then needing 
212 



JOHN'S EMBASSY TO JESUS. 213 

help for the satisfaction and support of his 
own mind. Great as John was, " a prophet 
and more than a prophet/' he was still hu- 
man. We have no warrant for assuming 
that he was exempt from ordinary human 
weakness. If his faith needed bracing 
there in prison, it is not more strange than 
that the heart of the Old-Testament Elijah 
once failed him so that he " sat down under 
a juniper tree, and requested that he might 
die," murmuring, with absurd exaggeration, 
"They have slain thy prophets with the 
sword, and I, I only, am left ; and they seek 
my life to take it away," while yet there 
were seven thousand true worshipers of 
Jehovah in Israel. 

It is not necessary nor right to assume 
that John knew all about Jesus that we now 
know. " The least in the kingdom of hea- 
ven is greater than he." When he recog- 
nized Jesus and attested him as the Christ, 
we have no means of knowing exactly what 
expectations he entertained concerning the 
coming of " the kingdom of heaven," which 
he declared to be " at hand." His preach- 
ing repentance (a change of mind), and his 



2 14 HOME WHISPERS. 

pointing to Jesus as " the Lamb of God 
that taketh away the sin of the world," 
seem to show that he had worthy and right 
views of a spiritual salvation. But it is 
not necessary to suppose that his mind was 
wholly free from the prevalent Jewish expec- 
tation of a temporal deliverance and of a 
Messiah setting up a mighty and glorious 
earthly kingdom. Even the apostles did 
not get rid of this notion all the three years 
• of their walking with Jesus until they had 
seen him go up from Olivet. Why should 
we assume that John the Baptist's mind 
was wholly free from that misconception? 

If John had expected Jesus soon to 
come forth with demonstration of his glory 
and power, conclusively to all the nation 
and irresistibly to imperial Rome, his faith 
must have been severely tried in that prison. 
" If Jesus is what I was ordered to proclaim 
him, will he not rescue me from Herod and 
rescue my country from Roman tyranny? 
Having accepted my baptism and my testi- 
mony to his Messiahship, does he forget me 
and leave me here to Herodias's malignity ?" 

It seems to me not unlikely that John had 



JOHN'S EMBASSY TO JESUS. 21 5 

some such misgivings, and needed some 
help to his faith. Good men, the very best 
of men, are sometimes placed in situations 
which severely try their faith. Sometimes 
they are left in such situations a discour- 
agingly long time. It does not prove that 
they are not true children of God if some- 
times they need help to sustain themselves 
in steady faith. It may help them and com- 
fort them to study this trying experience of 
John. 

There is no better thing for such tried 
souls than just to apply to the Lord Jesus 
for the help which they need. They can- 
not go to him bodily nor send messengers 
who may audibly talk with him. Do they 
need to do that now after all these centuries 
of experience and testimony of those who 
have trusted him ? Have not we the an- 
swer which he sent back to John ? Was 
not this its import? — " Judge for yourself, 
my friend, whether He who does such things 
as your messengers will report to you is the 
Messiah, and whether you cannot trust him." 
Has not that answer been gathering force, 
cumulatively, all these ages ? 



2l6 HOME WHISPERS. 

" Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, 
and he shall strengthen thy heart — wait, I 
say, on the Lord." " Surely I come quick- 
ly" he did indeed say a great while ago. 
It seems a great while now, but when we 
look back upon it from the midst of the 
future glory, " millions of ages hence" 
doubtless it will seem only " a little while." 
Then we shall thankfully confess that tru- 
ly he did " come quickly." " Be patient, 
therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the 
Lord." 



XXXVII. 

"THE GOD OF HOPE." 

HAVE you noticed this scriptural des- 
ignation of God ? Have you noticed 
that it occurs in the writings of Paul — that 
same Paul who wrote those high and awful 
things about predestination from which the- 
ologians have elaborated the Calvinistic 
confessions ? Doubtless it is quite possi- 
ble that uninspired men and councils and 
assemblies of uninspired men, elaborating 
such creeds or confessions, may have put 
into them harsher and more forbidding 
forms of expression than would best con- 
vey the truth to average minds. It is right 
for us to keep in mind that these symbols 
are not our rule of faith, but human, though 
devout, expositions of that rule. We must 
perpetually test them, as all human utter- 
ances, by the infallible word of God. 
What I notice is, that the most amply in- 

217 



2l8 HOME WHISPERS. 

spired expounder of God's sovereignty and 
of his eternal foreordination is the same 
who calls him " the God of hope" (Rom. 
15:13). I have known some serious per- 
sons who had been taught, or had wrought 
out for themselves, a theology which shut 
them up to a view of God which would be 
more truly expressed by calling him the 
God of despair. Such "bruised reeds" 
need to be lifted up from their drooping 
by the cheery tone in which the very apos- 
tle of predestination speaks to them of " the 
God of hope." 

I have just been reading the Life of 
Charles Hodge, the theological teacher of 
more living Presbyterian ministers than 
any man, and whose Systematic Theology 
is probably now studied by more ministers 
and students than any other work of the 
kind. There are some features of the sys- 
tem of which my own mind does not accept 
Dr. Hodge's exposition. They have been 
somewhat differently expounded in our 
several theological schools, while the men 
taught and teaching- in all these schools cor- 
dially regard one another as holding alike 



"THE GOD OF HOPE!" 219 

all the essentials of the system. What I 
wish to say of Dr. Hodge is, that while he 
has been regarded as especially emphasizing 
the sterner and more severe aspects of the 
Calvinistic theology, and as expounding 
some of its hard things in not the most 
u acceptable words/' yet his faithful biog- 
raphy shows him to have been as eminent 
for kindness of heart and sweetness of dis- 
position and genial hopefulness as for keen- 
ness and strength of intellect and for brave 
persistence in asserting and defending the 
truth as he understood it. His solemn, 
stern Calvinism made him neither hard- 
hearted nor gloomy. No man has lately 
died for whom more living men and wom- 
en have wept with a right filial love than 
Dr. Charles Hodge. 

Now, Dr. Hodge's study and labor, for a 
great part of his long life, were upon the 
writings of Paul. All his elaborate system 
of theology is deduced from his exposition 
of those writings. Unless he understood 
and expounded Paul rightly, then, he would 
say, his life-work was a failure. It is worth 
while to take notice how such lifelong study 



220 



HOME WHISPERS. 



of Paul, such intimate association with Paul, 
affects a man's character and disposition. 
Still more to the purpose is it to notice how 
the views which Paul held affected his own 
mind — what spirit and temper they wrought 
in him. Study Paul's writings, and Luke's 
biographical notices of him in the Acts, 
with this in view, to find what manner of 
man Paul was and more and more became, 
as his character matured and ripened under 
the influence of that theology which he held 
and taught — which the Holy Spirit reveals 
to us by him. Was that a very stern, harsh, 
unsympathizing man who wrote, "Now the 
God of hope fill you with all joy and peace 
in believing, that ye may abound in hope 
through the power of the Holy Ghost" and 
a hundred other as warm and cheery and 
sweet passages ? 

God was to Paul not the God of gloom 
and despondency, but the "God of hope:" 
and he believed that a true view of God 
would enable believers to " abound 'in hope." 
He also expects believers, by reason of their 
believing, to be "filled with joy and peace." 

To believe is to trust. To believe is " to 



"THE GOD OF HOPE:' 221 

accept Christ as he is freely offered to us 
in the gospel." Why should not this fill 
the soul with peace and joy? 

How is it that so many suppose experi- 
mental Christianity to be joyless ? — espe- 
cially that type of experimental Christianity 
which is the product of deep and solemn 
conviction of the truths which characterize 
the teaching of Paul as evidently as they 
do that of Hodge or Calvin ? In reality, 
there is no other joy so deep as that which 
comes of being consciously in peace and 
harmony with the holy Sovereign "in whose 
hand our breath is, and whose are all our 
ways." I find it printed of two godly lay- 
men whom I knew as old men when I was 
a youth, " Those grave, thoughtful men were 
happy." They were, I suppose, good speci- 
mens of the Puritan ; and if they were, those 
who call the Puritans "vinegar-faced," or 
imagine them gloomy or hard-hearted, are 
greatly mistaken. Their joy was as deep 
as their character and as high as their faith 
and as steadfast as that blessed hope which 
anchored their redeemed souls. They be- 
lieved in the sovereign, holy God, and re- 



222 HOME WHISPERS. 

joiced in his holy sovereignty. They be- 
lieved in the divine-human Redeemer, and 
had peace with God through him. They 
loved his church, his house, his book, his 
day and every one of his people. That 
is a sober joy, but it is a real joy. It is 
very unlike "the crackling of thorns under 
a pot" to which the Bible proverb likens 
" the laughter of fools," which is about all 
there is of a good deal that many chase 
after, mistaking it for joy. How much bet- 
ter this Christian joy is ! How much longer 
it lasts ! It is a deep " well of water spring- 
ing up unto everlasting life." 



XXXVIII. 

THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

WE may use the word " kingdom " to 
denote the peopled territory over 
which a king bears rule or to denote the 
authority which he has over such a terri- 
tory. There is another use of the word 
" kingdom. " We speak of the animal king- 
dom, the vegetable kingdom and the min- 
eral kingdom. We thus classify substances. 
A piece of granite, of marble, of iron ore, 
of coal, — either of these you would call a 
mineral. A scientific treatise will speak of 
these as " inorganic bodies having a definite 
chemical composition." Certain material 
elements take form in a definite way. The 
forces which construct them act uniformly, 
so that we can understand them as acting 
according to a law. We do understand 
those forces as both originated and regu- 
lated under law by a skillful, powerful mind, 

223 



224 HOME WHISPERS. 

a living-, thinking Creator, who makes them 
act uniformly. He is intelligent about it; 
those forces are neither intelligent nor vol- 
untary. In calling this regulation of mate- 
rial forces law; we give the term " law " a 
slight deflection from the meaning which it 
has when the subjects of law are intelligent 
and voluntary. We speak of the laws of 
nature, meaning the Creator's wise regula- 
tion of the forces of nature. 

What is a plant more than a mineral ? 
It is " an organized body." It not only has 
a definite form and chemical composition, 
but it has organs, and it grows by means 
of nutrition through its organs. Each spe- 
cies does this according to the law for it 
made and provided. 

You speak of vegetable life, but never of 
mineral life. You say, " Those trees are 
alive." You never say that a stone is alive. 
When you say that a tree is alive, you do 
not mean all that you mean when you say 
that a horse or a man is alive. But you 
mean a great deal by saying that a tree or 
a plant is alive. A live tree differs from a 
dead tree as evidently as a live man from 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 225 

a dead man. A dead tree will not grow 
nor produce leaves nor blossoms nor fruit ; 
a living tree will. But it must do so in a 
particular way, according to the law which 
God has made for it, " bearing fruit after 
its kind." The rose and the lily will never 
bloom alike, nor the peach tree bear pears, 
nor the cherry tree apples. All vegetables 
grow and bloom and bear fruit or seed ac- 
cording to their laws. 

An animal is of a higher order of being 
than either a mineral or a vegetable. It is 
not only organized and capable of growing 
and of propagating its kind, but it has 
sensation and voluntary motion. It walks 
about ; it feels as the plant cannot. It is 
alive, with a higher and larger life. 

Why do we call these three different de- 
partments of being "kingdoms"? On ac- 
count of their being systems under law. 
We do not imagine them as ruled by three 
different kings, but we do think of them as 
different systems, each regulated by its own 
peculiar laws. 

A body cannot be transferred from one 
of these kingdoms to the other without a 

15 



226 HOME WHISPERS. 

change of its nature — such a change as no 
human power can accomplish. 

The Lord taught Nicodemus that a man 
does not come into that spiritual state in 
which he can be classified as belonging to 
the kingdom of God by any process of ed- 
ucation or discipline. More is necessary 
than human culture and training- — some- 
thing greater, deeper, more radical. You 
might as well try to cultivate a plant till it 
can feel, transferring it from the vegetable 
kingdom to the animal kingdom, as to try 
to educate a human soul out of the king- 
dom of Satan into the kingdom of God. 

The Lord taught Nicodemus that a man 
cannot be classified as belonging to the 
kingdom of God by simply submitting to 
any religious rite to be performed on him 
by a priest. You might as well undertake 
to wash a stone until it will grow and blos- 
som and bear fruit — wash it out of the 
mineral kingdom into the vegetable king- 
dom. 

In order to a man's being transferred 
from the kingdom of Satan into the king- 
dom of God there must be a thorough and 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 227 

radical change wrought in him, making him 
a different man from what he was before, 
" a new creature." Each of us is human 
by reason of his birth from human parents, 
transmitting their own common nature ac- 
cording to the law of inheritance under 
which God created mankind. All essential 
human characteristics belong to each of us, 
because we have all been born of human 
parents. 

Hence there is no way of expressing 
more strongly the idea of being essentially 
different from what we are than by sup- 
posing us to have been differently born. 
This would be a radical difference — a dif- 
ference proceeding from the very root of 
our being. 

Our Lord spoke to Nicodemus of a 
change so deep, so thorough, so radical, 
that he called it being born again, gener- 
ated anew, regenerated, reconstructed from 
the very foundation of being. 

He did not explain the mode of this 
change. It is still a mystery. But every 
human being who, penitent for sin, accepts 
Jesus Christ for his Saviour, is born again. 



228 HOME WHISPERS. 

" For as many as received him, to them gave 
he power to become the sons of God, even 
to them that believe on his name" (John i : 
12). Surely to become a child of God is 
nothing else than to be born of God, and 
thus brought into his kingdom. 



XXXIX. 

THE LORD'S MARTYRS. 

IN that memorable interview of Paul 
with his Lord in the temple at Jerusa- 
lem (Acts 22 : 17-21) he said, "And when 
the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, 
I also was standing by, and consenting unto 
his death, and kept the raiment of them that 
slew him." 

It is not of Paul's touching humility and 
penitence here exhibited I would now speak, 
but of that significant phrase by which he 
describes the victim of that persecuting 
frenzy — " thy martyr Stephen." 

We shall the better appreciate its signif- 
icance if we revert to the derivation and the 
primary meaning of our word " martyr." 
In the Greek language, in which this ac- 
count was written, the word here rendered 
" martyr" is the same which in its plural 
form is rendered " witnesses " in the same 

229 



23O HOME WHISPERS. 

writer's account of the slaying of Stephen 
(Acts 7 : 58): "The witnesses laid down their 
clothes at a young man's feet, whose name 
was Saul." In that language a martyr 
(jidpzupb^ means simply a witness. Even 
maliciously false witnesses, like those whose 
testimony shed Stephen's blood, were called 
martyrs (jidpzupe^ A witness is one who 
testifies or tells what he knows. Usually, it 
is in order to furnish to a judicial tribunal 
the facts which are to be the basis of its 
judgment. So it was in the case of the 
witnesses against Stephen. There are few 
acts in human life and experience which in- 
volve more serious responsibility. No won- 
der that it has so eminent a place in one of 
the Ten Commandments : " Thou shalt not 
bear false witness against thy neighbor." 
It is suitable that witnesses be put under 
oath — i. e. made to avow their recollection 
that they are giving their testimony in the 
presence of God. The Old- Testament 
form of oath, " The Lord do so unto me, 
and more also," is not too solemn an ap- 
peal to Jehovah, nor is our own " So help 
me God!' 



THE LORD'S MARTYRS. 23 1 

If it is a solemn thing to testify before a 
human court for or against a fellow-man, if 
it behooves such a witness to recollect that 
he is in the presence and hearing of God, 
it surely is not less solemn to be a witness 
for God unto mankind. Such were the 
apostles, such was Stephen : " Thy witness 
(jidpzupbci) Stephen." 

But Stephen's honest testimony cost him 
his life, and he was the first in a " noble 
army of witnesses " who have laid down 
their lives for the same truth which he 
thus testified. So, in our Christian vocabu- 
lary, we have set apart that word martyr 
[ydpxDpbz) to signify not merely one who 
tells the truth, but tells it at the cost of 
his life. 

The martyrs, the men and women who 
have borne testimony to the Christian 
truth, and adhered to it steadfastly when 
they knew that they must die horrible deaths 
for it, are not only held in peculiar honor, 
but loved with a peculiar love. What 
Christian does not love Stephen and Huss 
and the unnamed multitude " whose bones 
lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cold," 



232 HOME WHISPERS. 

and whose blood was shed within the Scot- 
tish glens? 

Does not the Lord love them ? Will he 
to all eternity forget what they have borne 
for him? 

How well Paul knew the heart of his 
Master ! Himself so marvelously changed 
from a slayer of the witnesses into a wit- 
ness ready to be slain, he understands both 
sides of the experience. His penitence 
gives pathos to his affectionate allusion, 
" Thy martyr Stephen." He knew no 
dearer title to give to that slain disciple ; 
his whole life showed that he knew none 
more honorable to which he himself could 
now aspire. 

It is not likely now to cost us our lives 
to be the Lord's true witnesses. Yet it 
may cost us what is quite as hard to give 
up. I say it deliberately. There will some 
men and women read this who have testi- 
fied for the Lord, and stood to their testi- 
mony, at the cost of being misunderstood, 
despised, hated by some whose love and 
respect they w r ould by no means have for- 
feited to save their own lives. Some of 



THE LORD'S MARTYRS. 233 

them have been compelled to give bitter 
pain to those dear to them — so dear that 
they would never hesitate a moment to ex- 
pose their lives for them. Others will read 
this who are in situations which try their 
fidelity in the same way. They will have 
to choose between being true to their Lord 
and suffering what they would not to save 
their lives. Will it not help them to reflect 
that thus they will be " the Lord's martyrs " 
just as truly as they who have been stoned, 
sawn asunder, torn of beasts or burned? 
"The noble army of martyrs" is already 
a very great army, and its ranks are not 
yet full. In spirit, in heart, in affectionate, 
brave readiness to suffer for his name and 
his truth, every one of us may be a martyr 
of the Lord as dear to him as Stephen. 



XL. 

CONVICTION OF SIN. 

"'HP* HERE is very little sense of sin shown. 

X Dr. takes it for granted that we 

know and feel that we are sinners, and 
therefore need salvation. I suppose he is 
right in this ; still, I confess I should feel 
better if I saw more deep conviction of sin. 
Are we to suppose that, if we follow Christ's 
method of preaching, it will be sufficient un- 
less John the Baptist goes before awakening 
the conscience ? Is it want of faith in the 
power of Christ's words and free invita- 
tions that makes me shrink from some of 
the quiet acceptances, and fear that they are 
only on the surface ? That souls are being 
saved I have no doubt, but I see few or 
none that seem to take the kingdom of 
heaven by force. ,, 

The foregoing remarks are contained in 
a letter from an earnest and judicious pas- 

234 



CONVICTION OF SIN. 2$$ 

tor, some of whose people are seeking sal- 
vation, and who is properly anxious that 
they may "make sure work for eternity/' 
I am moved to make some responsive sug- 
gestions. 

i . Genuine conversion is not to be expect- 
ed without real conviction of sin. "They 
that be whole have no need of the phy- 
sician. " They who feel well do not send 
for the doctor ; they who are not convinced 
that they are sinners do not seek Jesus as 
a Saviour from sin. They may admire 
him ; they may like him ; they may have a 
sentimental fondness for him, which they 
will love to utter in hymns full of tender 
phrases ; but not as a deliverer from sin 
and from a deserved perdition do they 
accept him. 

2. There may be real conviction of sin 
where "there is very little sense of sin 
shown." Our civilization and education 
put a severe and habitual restraint upon 
the natural manifestations of feeling. We 
do not undertake to estimate the sense 
of bereavement which cultivated men or 
women feel by any signs of it in their 



236 HOME WHISPERS. 

faces or manners or voices. We do not 
imagine that there is less real sorrow at 
one of our most silent funerals than in a 
house or hovel which resounds with an Ori- 
ental wailing. There is many a heart in 
Christian congregations and schools and 
homes that carries an habitual sense of 
shame and guiltiness, and has many secret 
paroxysms of distress on account of its 
own mean selfishness and hateful wicked- 
ness, but hides itself from the observation 
of others under a smiling face and gay 
manners. Sometimes this dissatisfaction 
with self makes a person irritable, and 
vexes those who, if they understood the 
symptom rightly, would pity him and try to 
bring him to Him who casteth out devils. 

3. Conviction of sin is not mainly a mat- 
ter of feeling. The Bible question is not, 
" How badly do you feel about your sins ?" 
but " How frankly are you willing to con- 
fess them ?" and " How ready are you to 
forsake them ?" Are you a sinner ? Do 
you know it? Do you acknowledge it? 
Do you submit yourself to the judgment 
of God concerning it? Do you confess 



CONVICTION OF SIN, 237 

that you deserve all that he threatens, even 
everlasting banishment from him into the 
dismal hopelessness which his word figures 
under such dreadful symbols ? That is 
conviction of sin, no matter how calm and 
tranquil you are — no matter how (being so 
used to this conviction) it has lost its power 
to agitate you or to pierce you with sudden 
and sharp pangs. To know and be willing 
to confess, — that is conviction. To feel 
more or less is incidental, not essential. 

4. Our brother need not " shrink from 
quiet acceptances " if they evidence them- 
selves as real acceptances. They cannot 
be more quiet than that of the Ethiopian 
eunuch in his chariot or that of Lydia at 
the river-side prayer-meeting. But both 
those quiet recipients of God's offered 
mercy started promptly forward in the way 
of confessing and serving Christ. So will 
those who really accept Christ now. If 
they have been living by business which is 
immoral or wicked or harmful to others, they 
will quit it at once at whatever sacrifice. If 
they have been addicted to pleasures con- 
cerning which they doubt whether Christ 



238 HOME WHISPERS. 

approves them, they will give them up for 
his sake. And the many right and proper 
things which they have been accustomed to 
do they will continue to do just as before. 
The world will see no difference, but Christ 
will see, and they will feel a difference, sud- 
denly or gradually. They will do such right 
and proper things, not merely because they 
are right and proper, but also as pleasing 
to Christ. The commonest duty in home 
or school, or store or bank, or shop or sta- 
ble, will be done as to the Lord, and not 
unto men. The simplest kindness or cour- 
tesy will be shown as if one were giving a 
drink of water to the thirsty Jesus. Ac- 
cepted as a Saviour from sin, humbly, 
heartily, thankfully, he is accepted as the 
Guide and the Lord of one's life. This 
u new obedience" — obedience in the new 
spirit of loving discipleship — is the only sure 
evidence that the " acceptance/' whether 
"quiet" or eager, was real, and that the 
conviction of sin which led to it was gen- 
uine. 

4 'John the Baptist has gone before" in 
our congregations and Sabbath-schools. 



CONVICTION OF SIN. 239 

His shaggy coat and leather girdle have 
long ago ceased to be noticed, but his sol- 
emn " Repent ye " has kept sounding in 
the ears of the generation. Their busy, 
bustling, eager worldliness has not kept 
them from hearing it. They know that 
they ought to repent. They would not 
respect God if he was satisfied with them. 
They know it would spoil heaven to let 
them into it as they are. They may try 
to forget this by thinking how much better 
they are than some church-members, but 
they would not think it a very nice heaven 
that such church-members could get into, 
or themselves either. The true heaven, 
the pure heaven, God's heaven, — if they 
are ever going to it they must just " right- 
about-face," Moody's excellent definition 
of John the Baptist's " Repent." There 
are multitudes of such people as I have 
described everywhere in city and coun- 
try. They are convicted of sin. Their 
hearts are heavy and tired with a dull, 
habitual dissatisfaction. The ribald scoffs 
of atheism, the " dirt philosophy " of mate- 
rialism, the "soft solder" of aestheticism, 



240 HOME WHISPERS. 

the self-flattery of liberalism, — all have 
failed to give them rest. 

If, when you preach Christ crucified to 
such people, and make them understand 
that only to confessing sinners does he ad- 
dress his kind call, " Come unto me," they 
come, accept, obey, do not forbid them. 
Such coming is the best evidence and the 
right result of true conviction of sin. 



XLI. 

A CALM CONVERSION. 

IN my first pastoral charge there was 
a candid, thoughtful, undemonstrative 
man, whom I first observed as a constant 
attendant at the church, always appearing 
to give close attention to the preaching and 
always reverential in his demeanor. He 
was a teacher in one of the public schools. 
When I found opportunity to converse per- 
sonally with him, I found him giving ready 
and full assent to the truth of the gospel 
as he was accustomed to hear it, equally 
ready to confess his own need of it, but 
sorry to say that he was quite destitute of 
religious feeling. Clear conviction he had, 
but it was altogether calm and cool, unac- 
companied by the emotion which seemed 
to him appropriate, and without which, he 
supposed, any religious action would be 
hypocrisy. I endeavored to show him that 

16 241 



242 HOME WHISPERS. 

conviction, not feeling, should guide to ac- 
tion — that if he knew himself a sinner and 
knew Christ a Saviour, it was reasonable 
and scriptural to confess the sinfulness and 
accept the Saviour. For some weeks he 
pondered the subject in this new view of 
it with quickened attention to preaching 
and candid readiness for conversation with 
his pastor whenever there was opportunity 
for it. 

Our weekly prayer-meetings were held 
in an old-fashioned lecture-room, in which 
one aisle extended from the door in front 
to the desk in the farther end, with one 
row of long seats on each side of it, each 
seat reaching from the aisle to the wall. 
We sat also in an old-fashioned way, the 
women on one side and the men on the 
other. At one of these meetings I read 
the story of Philip and the eunuch in the 
eighth chapter of Acts. I called attention 
to the contrast between this instance of 
genuine conversion and that of the jailer. 
The jailer cried out in terror, " What must 
I do to be saved ?" The eunuch, quietly 
reading in the book of Isaiah of Him who 



A CALM CONVERSION. 243 

was led as a lamb to the slaughter, so ig- 
norant that he did not know of whom the 
prophet wrote, readily accepted Philip's ex- 
planation of it as then just fulfilled in Jesus 
— believed, was baptized and " went his way 
rejoicing." No terror, no agitation, no vio- 
lent emotion, but simple, clear conviction of 
truth, promptly and properly acted upon. 

I expressed the opinion that some present 
had as clear convictions, as correct views of 
Christ and his offered salvation, as the Ethi- 
opian had after Philip preached Jesus to 
him. The difference was, that the Ethiopian 
at once acted according to that conviction 
in obedient acceptance of the truth, and 
those to whom I was speaking had not 
done so ; they were waiting until they 
should find themselves feeling as the jailer 
felt when waked from sleep by the earth- 
quake. I frankly declared my opinion that 
they had no need thus to wait ; that it would 
probably be in vain thus to wait ; that they 
ought to accept the leading of God's Spirit 
in the very way in which he was giving it 
to them. Seeing the truth just as the Ethi- 
opian saw it, contemplating it calmly just as 



244 HOME WHISPERS. 

he did, why not act just as he did? There 
was unusual stillness and attention all 
through the room. I believed that there 
were a number in the room to whom the 
word was applicable, but I had on my heart 
especially my friend the teacher. Pressing 
the thought upon the consideration of the 
class of persons whom I had described, I 
urged them to do just as the eunuch did. 
"Will you?" I asked, and paused, not ex- 
pecting a reply, but giving them opportu- 
nity to ponder the question. Quite near 
the door a woman rose from her seat and 
stood silent. Perceiving what she intended 
by the signal, I said, u One of our friends 
has risen to signify her acceptance of what 
I have proposed : are there not others who 
will do the same ?" How I loncred to see 
that thoughtful man rise ! But he did not, 
and no others did. After waiting sufficient- 
ly for this, I gave opportunity for others to 
speak and pray, and the meeting proceeded. 
Soon the teacher rose, and in his own calm, 
quiet way expressed his conviction that what 
the pastor had proposed was both reason- 
able and scriptural. He saw no reason 



A CALM CONVERSION. 245 

why one should not act thus according 
to reasonable conviction. He asked his 
friends to pray that he might be helped 
and strengthened to do so. 

At the close of the meeting, joining his 
wife at the door and giving her his arm, he 
asked her who the lady was that rose, think- 
ing, as she sat farther back in the room than 
he, she might have seen, as he did not. She 
informed him that it was herself. It was a 
joyful surprise to him, for in that strange 
reticence which so often possesses those 
nearest each other concerning that which 
most nearly and solemnly concerns them, 
no word had passed between them on the 
subject of their personal interest in relig- 
ion. He had not been at all aware of his 
wife's interest in the subject, and felt no 
assurance of her sympathy with him in the 
step he had taken. Now he discovered 
that she had even stepped into the narrow 
path before him, and it will easily be be- 
lieved that they " went on their way re- 
joicing." He became a deacon afterward, 
and went on many years faithfully serving 
the church and " leading a quiet and peace- 



246 HOME WHISPERS. 

able life in all godliness and honesty." 
Long after my removal to other scenes of 
labor I was visiting the old place, and had 
a leisurely interview with that friend, in 
which he recalled with deep interest and 
thankfulness his early experience, and told 
me of the kind way in which the Lord had 
led him ever since. The interview was a 
precious one, and it was our last. He 
seemed in his ordinary health then, for all 
that I noticed. But a few weeks afterward 
I learned that he was gone. He was ready. 



XLII. 

COBDEN AND BRIGHT, 

"TI THEN the question was one to be 
V V settled by the rules that govern 
man's substantial interests, or even by the 
standing rules (if such an expression may 
be allowed) of morality, then Cobden was 
unequaled. So long as the controversy 
could be settled after this fashion, ' I will 
show you that in such a course you are 
acting injuriously to your own interests/ 
or ' You are doing what a fair and just man 
ought not to do/ — so long as argument of 
that kind could sway the conduct of men, 
then there was no one who could convince 
as Cobden could/' Thus Mr. Justin Mc- 
Carthy describes one of the great leaders 
of the movement which repealed the Eng- 
lish corn laws. 

Of the other he says: " He was what Mr. 

247 



248 HOME WHISPERS. 

Cobden was not, an orator of the very high- 
est class. It is doubtful whether English 
public life has ever produced a man who 
possessed more of the qualifications of a 
great orator than Mr. Bright." 

McCarthy tells us how these two men be- 
came yokefellows in the great movement in 
which they became so famous ; or rather he 
lets Mr. Bright tell it in his own words : " I 
was in Leamington, and Mr. Cobden called 
on me. I was then in the depths of grief, 
I may almost say of despair, for the light 
and sunshine of my house had been extin- 
guished. All that was left on earth of my 
young wife, except the memory of a sainted 
life and a too brief happiness, was lying still 
and cold in the chamber above us. Mr. 
Cobden called on me as my friend and ad- 
dressed me, as you may suppose, with words 
of condolence. After a time he looked up 
and said : ' There are thousands and thou- 
sands of homes in England at this moment 
where wives and mothers and children are 
dying of hunger. Now, when the first par- 
oxysm of your grief is passed, I would 
advise you to come with me, and we 



COBDEN AND BRIGHT. 249 

will never rest until the corn laws are 
repealed/ " 

Take notice that it was the calm, unim- 
passioned, business-like Cobden, whom the 
historian hesitates to call an orator, who 
made that appeal. Did he " count it an ar- 
gument " ? I do not know. But who will 
assign it any low rank among the forces 
which brought to pass the repeal of the 
corn laws ? 

The repeal of the corn laws was the ab- 
olition of a monopoly which forced bread 
to high prices for the enriching of corn- 
growers. The corn-growers were in Eng- 
land, and are always in every land, a highly 
useful class. They injured and wronged 
the people only by exacting too high a 
price for necessary food. We have a more 
powerful class in this age, in our land, who 
enrich themselves and impoverish the peo- 
ple by transforming grain into drinks that 
are unwholesome, and the free use of which 
is demoralizing, and which they succeed in 
selling at enormous profit. 

The abolition of this traffic is to be ef- 
fected in two ways: (i) By persuading the 



250 HOME WHISPERS. 

people to withhold their patronage from it; 
(2) When they are thus made sober enough, 
by making and enforcing effective laws. 

The men now most useful toward this 
end are the men, like Mr. Cobden, who say, 
" I will show you that in patronizing and 
sustaining the liquor-traffic you are acting 
injuriously to your own interests, and you 
are doing what a fair and just man ought 
not to do." And yet the coolest Cobden 
of them all can hardly help saying, " There 
are thousands and thousands of homes in 
our country at this moment where wives 
and mothers and children are [enduring 
what is worse than] dying of hunger. . . . 
We will never rest until the rum-power is 
abolished. ,, And every true man's thought 
of her who sits queen in his home or is 
lying still and cold in the chamber gives 
point and power to the argument. 



XLIII. 

ELDER WYCKOFF. 

HE was of the Baptist denomination ; 
and quite decided and strenuous in 
maintaining its distinguishing tenets. Yet 
he was eminently a Christian, well known 
and thoroughly believed in as such by all 
who knew him, and notably kind and cour- 
teous and charitable to all. He was thor- 
oughly evangelical in his opinions, and, 
while kind and courteous to those of any 
faith and of none, he specially and tenderly 
loved all who loved our Lord Jesus Christ 
and trusted in his atoning blood. All such, 
of whatever denomination, were brothers 
and sisters to Elder Wyckoff, and he had 
a happy way of making them feel that he 
was a most affectionate brother (or father) 
to them. 

When I entered the ministry in the Pres- 
byterian Church he was an old man — not 

251 



252 HOME WHISPERS. 

far from eighty years of age. It was al- 
ways a comfort to me to meet him. He 
never put forward the topics on which we 
held opposite opinions, but talked of those 
greater things which we held alike, and 
which we both alike held to be the essen- 
tials of our common faith. His whole man- 
ner was exceedingly significant of fatherly 
sympathy. He knew some of my needs 
better than I did. He had had before I 
was born, the experiences which were then 
new to me and had had time to study out 
their meaning. He made me feel that he 
sincerely wished me to become as good and 
useful a minister as I possibly could, and 
most gladly would he do all he could to 
help me. He seemed most solicitous to 
help me grow in grace, in prayerfulness, 
in piety. Yet he had very decided opinions 
on the questions of theology which are 
deemed most important, and could express 
them clearly, yet did so always kindly. 

When Elder Wyckoff had become wholly 
disabled from preaching — being, I am quite 
sure, more than fourscore years of age — he 
and his aged wife were living with their 



ELDER WYCKOFF. 2$$ 

daughter and son-in-law as one pleasant 
family. There were no children. I once 
exchanged pulpits with my brother, and 
have the most pleasing recollections not 
only of the perfect hospitality with which 
I was entertained, but especially of the kind 
treatment which I received from the aged 
father. He had suffered a partial paralysis, 
considerably impairing his powers of loco- 
motion and of speech, but not at all dimin- 
ishing the clearness and force of his think- 
ing. He was a large, heavy man and 
moved about with some difficulty, yet his 
love for the sanctuary was . such that he 
went twice that day to its services — once 
in the place where he was accustomed to 
worship, and once (in his generous courtesy) 
where he would listen to my preaching. In 
the evening, after the public service, we sat 
together at his fireside and talked of things 
interesting to us as Christians and minis- 
ters. I was glad to listen to his sugges- 
tions in regard to preaching. I had tried 
to preach the gospel that day and to per- 
suade my hearers to accept it. 

" I perceive/' said my aged friend, " that 



254 HOME WHISPERS. 

you speak of the gospel as an offer; I have 
been accustomed rather to speak of it as a 
proclamation. " 

He spoke with some difficulty and very 
slowly, thus giving me time attentively to 
weigh his words and to study the distinc- 
tions which he wished to make. I was 
not then sharp enough in the theological 
dispute on that topic to see at once what 
distinction he made between "offer" and 
" proclamation," but very soon he made it 
apparent. 

He slowly continued : " I presume that 
you hold to a general atonement?" 

" Certainly," I replied, catching a glimpse 
of his meaning. 

As slowly as before he proceeded: "Well, 
I have no controversy — with my brethren — 
on that point — provided they give me evi- 
dence — that they hold to the necessity of 
any atonement at all." 

Here more light broke into my mind, and 
I saw that those who considered our doc- 
trine unscriptural did so by misunderstand- 
ing us to teach some vague and general 
notion of God's good-will to men moving 



ELDER WYCKOFF. 2$$ 

him to offer pardon and life to them all, 
without any real expiation satisfying his 
justice. How they could so misunderstand 
us I could not see then, nor can I see now. 
It was pleasant to find that Elder Wyckoff 
had been too attentive and too candid thus 
to misunderstand me. 

I had time to think all this rapidly, and 
there was nothing in his gentle and fatherly 
yet respectful manner to rouse my youthful 
combativeness and disturb my ability to un- 
derstand him. 

He proceeded : " But it has always been 
more satisfactory to me — and it has seemed 
to me more scriptural — to conceive of the 
atonement as particular'' [I observed that 
he did not use the word "limited," which I 
had supposed to be the antithetic term to 
"general" in that application]; "and when 
I think of our blessed Lord — the Lord of 
glory, the eternal Son of God — leaving his 
heavenly throne, coming down to this world, 
humbling himself to all that shame and sub- 
mitting to all that anguish for poor, unwor- 
thy, hell-deserving me — " Here his deep 
emotion entirely overpowered him, and he 



256 HOME WHISPERS. 

quite broke down into tears and sobbing. 
He soon recovered himself, apologized for 
his weakness, ascribing it to his paralytic 
affection, and was able to continue the con- 
versation. There was no need, however, 
of finishing that broken sentence. Its con- 
clusion was obvious enough, as it must be, 
I think, to every reader. 

As I went to my bed that night I said, in 
my heart, u How I wish that the eminent 
theologians who are startling the Church 
with the noise of their controversy about 
the extent of the atonement, firing their 
thundering broadsides from the decks of 
their antagonistic quarterlies, could sit down 
together at the sacred spot to which this 
clear-headed and tender-hearted old man 
has led me this evening, and just look up 
there to the cross and to Him who hanpfs 
bleeding on it!" I felt sure that there 
they would just stop disputing. Each heart 
would melt with the " particular " appropri- 
ating thought, " All that is for poor, unwor- 
thy, hell-deserving me," and both would go 
thence hand in hand, prepared to unite in 
saying to any and every fellow-man whom 



ELDER WYCKOFF. 2$y 

they might anywhere find, " All that is for 
you, if you acknowledge your need of it 
and are willing to take it." 

In the more kindly discussions, in the 
more earnest co-operation in practical la- 
bors, in the better mutual understandings 
and in the happy reunions of more recent 
years, the noise of that particular contro- 
versy has almost wholly ceased. 

In general, the disposition to contend 
harshly and angrily with fellow-Christians 
has abated somewhat since the middle of 
this century. But we have still many un- 
settled questions, and on some of them we 
still hear not only earnest but harsh voices. 
Is it not evermore true that tender experi- 
ence of the love of Christ abates that 
harshness, and that the nearer we stand 
to the cross when we examine our differ- 
ences, the less reason for angry contention 
over those differences does there appear ? 

17 



XLIV. 

GOD'S POEM. 

WHERE we read in our English ver- 
sion " We are God's workmanship n 
(Eph. 2 : 9) no violence would be done to 
the original if we should read "We are 
God's poem" This is not intended as a 
criticism upon our version. The word 
which the translators chose is a better ren- 
dering than the word " poem " would be. 
Yet there is a richness and beauty in the 
sentence which can be more fully realized 
by considering the peculiar word which the 
apostle wrote. It is rzorr^ua, " poiema," the 
very word from which (see Webster) our 
word " poem " is derived. It comes in the 
Greek from the word noeew, "poieo," which 
means to do or to make. Poiema is a thing 
made. But what vast and various meaning 
is there in the word make! To make a shoe 
or a bonnet, to make a purchase, to make a 

258 



GOD'S POEM. 255 

mistake, to make money, to make a bed, to 
make a picture, to make friends, to make a 
speech, a song, a drama, — how like a live 
thing the word leaps and springs from one 
grade or shade of significance to another ! 
To what humble utilities it stoops ! To 
what lofty ideals it mounts ! 

In no low sense of making are Christians 
" God's workmanship" — no mechanical sense. 
We are his work in a higher sense than we 
intimate by the word " handiwork " — in a 
higher sense, doubtless, than we express 
by the phrase "work of art." There is 
nothing of human workmanship to which 
we can compare it and not be obliged to 
feel, " It is greater than that ; that is only 
a hint toward it, not a representation of it." 
But is there not in our word poem some- 
thing that uplifts our thoughts toward a 
better conception ? 

A poem is that which utters the poet's 
best thoughts, which discloses his deepest 
feelings, which suggests more than it utters, 
more than it discloses. It makes us feel 
that there is in the poet and in us more 
than he can tell, more than words can utter 



260 HOME WHISPERS. 

or phrases measure. We even call the 
poet's work creation. 

"We are God's poem, created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works, which God fore- 
ordained [fore- ordered, provided or pre- 
pared] that we should walk in them." Is 
not a true Christian life a divine poem ? 

Look around you for the most thorough- 
ly Christian lives. Study them. Read them. 
Let them sing themselves to you. That 
patient sufferer from want, from disease, 
from cruelty, who never murmurs, never 
desponds, never ceases from grateful ac- 
knowledgment of God's goodness ; that 
burdened mother, that busy merchant, that 
trusted banker, that diligent farmer, that 
faithful teacher, in whose daily life you see 
the very spirit of Him who " went about 
doing good " in Judea and Galilee, and 
whose meekness and conscientiousness and 
steadfastness and courage are blended in 
harmony like that of an anthem, — is not 
God uttering to you in such lives his own 
best thoughts and deepest feelings ? Do 
not such lives suggest to you more and 
deeper divine things than they exhibit? 



GOD'S POEM. 26l 

Do not neglect to read these poems. Do 
not overlook them and busy yourself with 
searching for blots and blemishes in the 
paper on which they are written. Do not 
occupy yourself with criticising the ordinary 
lives of professing Christians, and scowling 
and scolding forth your doubts whether they 
have any genuine divine poetry in them. If 
you want to know what divine grace can 
do, look where it has done its best. Read 
it there, and then say if there is no poetry, 
no truth deeper than prose can utter, and 
which poetry can only hint and suggest. 

Is it not a blessed thing to be one of 
God's poems? That is just what any one 
of us may be. His grace is sufficient for 
that, and it is freely offered to us, to every 
one of us. 



XLV. 

"WITH THE LORD." 

I HAVE known the father of a family to 
go from their Eastern home, hundreds 
of miles away, to the far West — beyond the 
mountains, beyond the Great Lakes, beyond 
the great " Father of Rivers." He has gone 
to seek for them a new and a better home — 
if not of greater comforts, at least of larger 
opportunities. Going away thus, he has bid 
them "good-bye" for many weeks — weeks 
that, in his absence, will seem long to them. 
They must wait as patiently and cheerfully 
as they can, sustained by the expectation 
of going by and by to be with him in the 
place which he is preparing for them. 

Very imperfect and dim are all their 
ideas of the place and of the long, strange 
journey they must take to go to it. They 
read of the vast prairies over which they 
will journey, stretching away in monotonous 

262 



"WITH THE LORD" 263 

level far as the eye can reach, in strange 
contrast to the hilly diversity of their native 
landscape. They are told of the mighty 
fiver on whose turbid torrent a mercantile 
navy floats — so different from the clear 
streams that flow near their home. They 
study maps and geographical descriptions 
and railway-routes, with accurate computa- 
tion of distances, but the most mature and 
intelligent of them will afterward find that 
only the actual journey and actual sight can 
give them a full and adequate apprehen- 
sion. The letters of the husband and father, 
written with his best powers of description, 
fall far short of giving them a satisfactory 
view of the scenery through which he trav- 
els or the places to which he comes. To the 
little children, untraveled and uninstructed 
in geography, all is exceedingly vague and 
dim. Their father has gone quite beyond 
all that is familiar and intelligible to them, 
quite into their unknown. To them his 
letters bring most imperfect conceptions 
of the place and the way. But there is 
one thought which is clear to them and 
unspeakably precious. It is that when they 



264 HOME WHISPERS. 

shall have made the journey they shall be 
with their father, wherever he is. And how- 
ever the mother's knowledge or accurate 
conception of the geography may be su- 
perior to the children's, still to her, as to 
them, the one thing which gives surpassing 
interest to it all, and fills her with satisfying 
anticipation, is that he is there with whom it 
is her highest earthly felicity to be. 

I have known an honest, brave young 
man to come over the sea, from the Euro- 
pean land of his birth, to this Western land 
of promise and of hope, leaving there a 
truthful, loving maiden solemnly betrothed 
to him, and consenting to his coming so far 
and tarrying so long out of her sight in 
the hope that one day he shall have won 
for her a home, to which she shall then 
come and be always with him. In all the 
months or years of their separation no 
study of books or maps and no attentive 
perusal of his letters can give her such 
knowledge of America that, when she 
comes, she will not find much to wonder 
at and of which to say, " The half was not 
told me." Not unlikely also she will have 



"WITH THE LORDT 265 

imagined some things which will not be 
realized. She will not find some things 
which she looked for, but when she finds him 
unchanged in his manliness and love, when 
he leaps on the deck as soon as the vessel 
which brings her touches the wharf, when 
he meets her and kisses her and shows him- 
self ready for the fulfillment of their vow, 
her heart is satisfied. Oh how superior are 
even earthly love and trust to all that can 
depend upon place or circumstance ! How 
mysterious and how marvelous and how 
mighty is that human experience that is 
fulfilled in simply being with an object of 
pure and true affection ! 

"So shall we ever be with the Lord." 
There is deep meaning in the word "Lord" 
as those affectionate and reverent men and 
women applied it to Jesus. It was a title 
expressive of high dominion, of high au- 
thority, of proprietorship and right to pos- 
sess and use and sway. It was a title fit 
for kings from their subjects, lowly or lofty. 
It was a title applied to Jehovah by devout 
Jews, familiar to them as the rendering of 
the name of Jehovah into the Greek ver- 



266 HOME WHISPERS, 

sion of their Scriptures. Yet it was ex- 
pressive also of an affectionate and trustful 
reverence. It denoted a homage and sub- 
mission such as loyal hearts love to pay, not 
a harshly-enforced submission — " Even as 
Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord." 
No true wife can be satisfied unless she 
thinks her husband worthy of such rever- 
ent love. 

All chivalrous loyalty to chieftains, all 
dutiful devotion to kings, all deepest and 
truest love to husbands which the happiest 
realms and happiest homes of earth have 
exemplified, — all these combined cannot 
equal the devotion and loyalty with which 
John and Peter and Thomas and the Marys 
used to call Jesus Lord. No less fervent 
and reverent was Paul's love of Jesus : " So 
shall we ever be with the Lord." He does 
not expatiate upon the great and many 
things which the Lord will do for them who 
have been faithful to him. He does not 
enumerate nor describe rich gifts and high 
dignities which he will bestow. To be with 
him is enough. This includes all that a 
loyal and loving heart can desire. For this 



"WITH THE LORD:' 267 

the Christian's deepest longing goes up, 
even as that of the migrating family for 
reunion with their head — just as the trust- 
ful maiden's heart sent its loyal yearning 
even across the sea. Not for the rich 
abundance of America's harvests did she 
long ; not for the autumnal splendor of its 
forests ; not for its golden promise to in- 
dustry and enterprise ; not for the beauty 
or majesty of its lakes and rivers nor for 
the awful grandeur of its cataract ; but for 
the heart-satisfying privilege of being with 
him whose presence is her home. 

"We shall ever be with the Lord." We 
may give the adverb its fullest meaning 
and strongest emphasis. That home-com- 
ing shall not be like these earthly, for so 
uncertain and so short a stay. The glad 
welcome to the " house not made with 
hands " will no more have the shadow on 
it of the soon-coming " good-bye." We 
shall there have come home to stay " for 
good" and for ever. We " shall go no 
more out." 

After all, what will it be to be with the 
Lord? Shall we see him with eyes like 



268 HOME WHISPERS. 

these ? with bodily vision ? What is vision ? 
What is sight to glorified spirits in bodies 
celestial ? All that we know and experience 
of sight with these feeble eyes, needing so 
soon the poor help of these glasses, — all 
this earthly seeing is as little to be com- 
pared with the " beatific vision " as a blind 
man's slow groping about objects with his 
hands is to be compared with our raptured 

" Sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine." 

All that it could be to see Jesus as Mary 
saw him at her home, as John saw him 
standing on the lake-shore, as the three 
saw him transfigured, or could have seen 
him if not overpowered by the dazzling vis- 
ion, — all that all such experiences could be 
is realized to those who are with the Lord — 
all this and more. " Eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither have entered into 
the heart of man, the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him." 
All that sight means to us and all that it 
reveals, all that bodily nearness or affec- 
tionate embraces can express, all that we 



"WITH THE LORD." 269 

feel of power and influence and joy in what 
we express by the word presence, — all this, 
realized toward the Lord Jesus, is the bless- 
edness for which 

" We a little longer wait, 
But how little none can know." 

In patience of faith and hope let us wait 
for his appearing ; and as to the dear ones 
who have gone from us, and those so often 
going, let us " comfort one another with 
these words : " 

"Jerusalem ! my happy home ! 
Name ever dear to me ! . . . 
Then shall my labors have an end, 
When I thy joys shall see." 



THE END. 



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